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A portable bladder detector, the size of a shoebox, developed at the University of Michigan, quickly and accurately detects Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), an often fatal disease that causes penetration fluid in the lungs. ARDS is a severe form of pulmonary inflammation caused by pneumonia, sepsis, trauma, aspiration or a combination of these conditions. It carries a high mortality rate. In the United States, 200,000 cases are diagnosed each year, resulting in 74,000 deaths.
Many of those who survive have poor lung function and have a hard time getting back to their normal daily activities. ARDS does not exist, and mechanical ventilation in an intensive care unit is usually required to support the patient until the lung is healed. Early detection improves patient outcomes.
Until now, doctors had to rely a lot on their own judgment and tedious tests. Michigan biomedical engineers say their device could provide diagnostic tools to improve ARDS survival rates and reduce the cost of care.
The equipment inside the breathalyzer protection developed by the University of Michigan and capable of quickly and accurately detect acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). (Courtesy Robert Coelius / Michigan Engineering, Communications and Marketing)
The device, a gas chromatograph, diagnoses the SDRA with an accuracy of nearly 90% in just 30 minutes. In addition, its speed and cost-effectiveness enabled it to monitor patients in real time, which made it possible to target and adjust current treatments.
"The most commonly used ARDS prediction tools are only correct in 18% of cases," says Xudong (Sherman) Fan, professor of biomedical engineering at UM. "Thanks to our machine, we can detect the onset and improvement of the condition before traditional x-ray changes and blood tests occur."
The UM device takes the patient's breathing in a tubing connected to the exhalation port of a mechanical ventilator. It badyzes nearly 100 volatile organic compounds, biomarkers that denote ARDS and also determine the course of the disease. The device can also track the effectiveness of treatment to cure it.
Currently, a doctor who suspects ARDS orders a chest x-ray and blood tests. The first is expensive and exposes the patient to radiation, and the second is invasive. The combination can take hours to badyze completely and the results represent a snapshot over time. To find out if the condition improves or worsens, you must repeat them.
The results of the portable breath badyzer come in the form of a graph. (Courtesy of Robert Coelius / Michigan Engineering, Communications and Marketing)
"Our ability to improve outcomes with ARDS has been hampered by the lack of a means to quickly and accurately diagnose the disease and monitor its progress," says Kevin Ward, a professor of emergency medicine and emergency medicine. biomedical engineering at UM. "But by badyzing the expired breath, we have solved these two problems and we have opened up important opportunities allowing us to treat ARDS sooner and develop a multitude of precision medicine treatments."
The research team considers ARDS as the first of many conditions that could be better identified and tracked with this new technology. "The technology should also be extremely useful for detecting and tracking the progress of many other diseases such as pneumonia, sepsis, asthma and others badociated with pulmonary or systemic inflammation of the blood," says Ward.
The university seeks to protect intellectual property through patents and seeks out marketing partners to help commercialize the technology.
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