Diabetes Detection of Breath

Patients with diabetes mellitus would not have bled to determine the concentration of sugar. They breathed enough to the detector. The censorship was immediately captured and 10 seconds later read the results.

This tool is made by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of North Sumatra, which was led by Tulus Ikhsan Nasution. He based this study on the levels of acetone in the blood, which are correlated when the diabetes patient exhales.

Tulus Nasution with University of North Sumatra students test the diabetes detection devices through breathing. (Picture from: Koran Tempo 3923)

"Breath of people with diabetes, which contains acetone and breath that does not contain acetone will be read by the tool," said Tulus, doctoral candidate of materials engineering studies at the University Sains Malaysia, last week.

Initially, he observed several physicians who treat patients with diabetes and examine the urine to determine acetone levels. Usually people with chronic diabetes, who did not consume drugs on a regular basis, have acetone levels in the blood high enough, so that his breath smelled of acetone.

From that observation, he and his colleagues make a replacement instrument glucometer, commonly used diabetes. Glucometer using a needle to take blood samples of patients.

Tools made of green material that is very easy to work with. Patients simply blew through the end of the tool shaped like a pipe. The air is then blown into a space of a breath test or testing chamber measuring 4x4x5 centimeters.

Incoming air was captured by a sensor that is sensitive to air containing acetone and without acetone. The sensor works by issuing an electrical signal, which is then converted into the units digit of blood sugar levels, just like the glucometer gauge.

Major diabetes symptoms.
(Picture from: KORAN TEMPO 3923)

In the laboratory tests conducted Tulus and his team, it appears that normal breathing is much different from the human breath acetone containing as much as 0.01 cc. "The test results graph of the sensor of acetone gas and the comparison, the breath without acetone and the air in nature, showing a difference," he said.

To create these sensors, Tulus spent 2 years 6 months in Malaysia and at the University of North Sumatra. Again and again he tried the right material. "In the country, I find new material from plants that are sensitive," said master of sensor research of University Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Although still awaiting formal clinical trials, the tool is able to detect levels of acetone in the breath is blown into the testing chamber. To make this tool, he assisted a number of students and professors, Maizal Isnen (sensor fabrication); Oki Handinata (construction of the sensor system); dr. Krista Sebayang (review of sensor materials), and Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, dr. Sutarman, who developed the software data.

"This tool will be tested clinically in medical school to be launched for medical purposes," said Sutarman. It also will apply patents and streamline the size of chamber testing.

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of North Sumatra, Professor Guslihan Dasa Tjipta, acknowledged the findings of Tulus and his friends is a new thing. "The working principle of this tool can be accepted," he said. He was preparing a number of endocrinologists to conduct clinical trials of the tool. *** [SAHAT SIMATUPANG | KORAN TEMPO 3923]

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