Feasibility of skin acetone analysis in patients with cardiovascular diseases

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Breath acetone is reported to be a noninvasive biomarker for heart failure. However, the measurement of this metabolite requires expertize and is not standardized yet. Acetone is also released from the skin; thus, measuring acetone as a skin gas may be easier than breath analysis. METHODS: We analyzed skin acetone collected from 41 hospitalized patients with cardiovascular diseases. Passive samplers were used to measure skin acetone emission. Passive sampler was softly fixed on the surface of forearm skin for 10 hour at night. RESULTS: Skin acetone emission ranged from 0.00 to 2.70 ng/cm2/h, and was significantly correlated with blood ketone bodies (r = 0.377, p = 0.017). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to analyze skin gas in patients with cardiovascular diseases.　Skin acetone emission was found to reflect blood ketone bodies. It is feasible to measure skin acetone emission for reflecting blood ketone bodies in patients with cardiovascular diseases.