Clinically Diagnose Asthma and Monitor Its Severity Using an Ultrasensitive Chemiresistive Nitric Oxide (NO) Gas Sensor via Exhaled Breath Analysis Assisted by Pattern Recognition

作者：Peisi Yin, Xiaoyu You, Xinyue Cui, Zhipeng Tang, Shanshan Yu, Huaian Fu, Fei Song, Kai Zhang, Xin Zhao, Lipeng Wang, Huanhuan Tian, Xiaoyu Feng, Ping Li, Jinping Liu, Nailiang Zhai, Qiang Jing, Shasha Han, Bo Liu · 发表于：ACS Sensors · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1021/acssensors.5c00772 · 被引用次数：11 · 研究领域：Advanced Chemical Sensor Technologies、Gas Sensing Nanomaterials and Sensors、Analytical Chemistry and Sensors

Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is widely recognized as a reliable biomarker for asthma. FeNO sensors can help diagnose asthma and monitor its severity. In this study, an ultrasensitive chemiresistive gas sensor, sensitive to the key breath biomarkers of asthma─nitric oxide (NO) and H 2 S─was fabricated using Ag-decorated ZnO. The sensor exhibits detection limits of 5 ppb for NO and 50 ppb for H 2 S, and it can discriminate 10 ppb NO and 60 ppb H 2 S from the exhaled breaths. Clinically, a total of 80 exhaled breath samples were collected and tested, including 40 from asthma patients (APs) and 40 from healthy control subjects (HCs). The AP group was effectively distinguished from the HC group using a pattern recognition algorithm (PCA), attributed to the sensor’s beneficial cross-sensitivity to asthma biomarkers. A diagnostic model distinguishing asthma from non-asthma was constructed using the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm, achieving an overall accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 0.81, 0.88, and 0.75, respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) value for all subjects in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.92. The severity of asthma in three inpatients was monitored using the clinical evaluation method of diurnal peak expiratory flow (PEF) variation, alongside our sensor. The sensor’s response values exhibited a strong correlation ( r = −0.74 ( p < 0.05)) with the diurnal PEF variation values. To validate the sensor’s diagnostic capa...