PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ronja Weber AU - Naemi Haas AU - Astghik Baghdasaryan AU - Tobias Bruderer AU - Demet Inci AU - Srdjan Micic AU - Nathan Perkins AU - Renate Spinas AU - Renato Zenobi AU - Alexander Moeller TI - Volatile organic compound breath signatures of children with cystic fibrosis by real-time SESI-HRMS AID - 10.1183/23120541.00171-2019 DP - 2020 Jan 01 TA - ERJ Open Research PG - 00171-2019 VI - 6 IP - 1 4099 - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/6/1/00171-2019.short 4100 - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/6/1/00171-2019.full SO - erjor2020 Jan 01; 6 AB - Early pulmonary infection and inflammation result in irreversible lung damage and are major contributors to cystic fibrosis (CF)-related morbidity. An easy to apply and noninvasive assessment for the timely detection of disease-associated complications would be of high value. We aimed to detect volatile organic compound (VOC) breath signatures of children with CF by real-time secondary electrospray ionisation high-resolution mass spectrometry (SESI-HRMS).A total of 101 children, aged 4–18 years (CF=52; healthy controls=49) and comparable for sex, body mass index and lung function were included in this prospective cross-sectional study. Exhaled air was analysed by a SESI-source linked to a high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Mass spectra ranging from m/z 50 to 500 were recorded.Out of 3468 m/z features, 171 were significantly different in children with CF (false discovery rate adjusted p-value of 0.05). The predictive ability (CF versus healthy) was assessed by using a support-vector machine classifier and showed an average accuracy (repeated cross-validation) of 72.1% (sensitivity of 77.2% and specificity of 67.7%).This is the first study to assess entire breath profiles of children with SESI-HRMS and to extract sets of VOCs that are associated with CF. We have detected a large set of exhaled molecules that are potentially related to CF, indicating that the molecular breath of children with CF is diverse and informative.This is the first study to assess entire breath profiles of 101 children with SESI-HRMS. 171 molecules that are potentially related to CF were detected, indicating that the molecular breath profile of children with CF is diverse and informative. http://bit.ly/33nIeML