New LC-MS Test Helps to Identify Asthma in Patients

Asthma is a long-term medical condition that affects a wide range of people. The severity of the symptoms varies — most people are able to control their asthma, while for others, the condition can be life-threatening. Although it is not clear what causes some people to get asthma, there are factors that increase the risk of getting asthma including genetics, birth weight and environmental factors.

Researchers are trying to find out why people get asthma, and are also looking for improved ways to mitigate the symptoms once a patient gets asthma. A recent development includes an asthma pill, which researchers in the UK have been trialling with very good results. So in future, better treatments for asthma might help reduce the seriousness of the condition.

Blow into the tube please

For now, the aim is to identify asthma sufferers as soon as possible and ensure they receive the appropriate treatment and advice. The main method of diagnosing asthma is to examine the symptoms and then carry out some basic tests using a spirometer to assess how well your lungs function.

After taking a deep breath, you have to exhale as fast as you can and the spirometer measures the volume of air exhaled and the force used to exhale the air. To confirm the diagnosis, some patients are given an inhaler to try and the test is repeated — if the inhaler improves the values then it is likely you have asthma.

In children these tests are difficult to administer sometimes and in very young children their symptoms can often be similar to symptoms expected in many other childhood conditions. Other tests can be carried out to detect asthma, but they could all be described as invasive tests such as urine or blood analysis. So another method of determining asthma is desirable — preferably a non-invasive test that could be administered to children without causing upset or distress.

Non-invasive chromatography test for asthma

A team led by Colin Creaser from Loughborough University has developed such a test — a non-invasive asthma test that can easily be used by all ages. The test is based on the science of metabolic profiling — also known as metabolomics —  which involves measuring biological systems of metabolites and noting how they change in response to physiological stresses. By noting how the metabolic biomarkers respond and change to an illness allows an early diagnosis of an illness — sometimes even before symptoms present themselves.

The use of biomarkers in urine and blood to diagnose asthma has been investigated before, but the team have shown that biomarkers in saliva can be used to diagnose asthma using a non-invasive technique at an early stage. The team used LC-MS to successfully identify ten different biomarkers in patients with asthma. The use of LC-MS in metabolomics studies is discussed in the article, Automation Arrives. If the work is successful, we could in future have a simple asthma test on the tip of out tongue.