The Most Common Methods for Breath Acetone Concentration Detection: A Review

The number of diabetic patients in the world continue to increase. Therefore, new methods need to be developed to help the lives of affected people by improving the ability of diabetic monitoring in more efficient and faster ways. These methods should focus on making the devices more affordable, easier to use, less painful, in addition to the accuracy of readings compared with the commercially available ones. Various studies have shown a good correlation between volatile acetone concentration in the breath and ketone bodies in the blood. The breath analysis for diagnosis of diabetes mellitus is an attractive method since it does not need finger pricking. Research was done for measuring breath acetone concentration as a non-invasive method to monitor diabetes. In this paper, I will review the most common techniques that are used for breath acetone detection. A comparison between these techniques and the possibility of using them for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus are presented and discussed in detail. Finally, this review emphasizes the need for cheap, highly sensitive, easy to use and portable devices to help individuals living with diabetes mellitus to monitor their disease.