Breath-Printing of Heart Failure in Elderly

Abstract

Comorbidity represents a confounding factor in exhaled breath analysis, in particular with elderly population, which often shows both respiratory and heart diseases. Congestive heart failure (CHF) is the first cause of hospitalization and a primary cause of death and disability in the elderly population. CHF has important metabolic implications, thus exhaled VOCs analysis may support CHF severity assessment and CHF discrimination against controls. VOCs pattern in CHF has not been yet investigated so far, even if an increase in acetone and pentane has been observed. Here, breathprint based CHF diagnosis and severity classification have been studied. Moreover, studying an elderly population, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients have been enrolled, being COPD an important comorbidity in aged population.