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. 2022 Jul 12:13:819607.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.819607. eCollection 2022.

Volatile Organic Compounds From Breath Differ Between Patients With Major Depression and Healthy Controls

Marian Lueno  1 , Henrik Dobrowolny  1 , Dorothee Gescher  1 , Laila Gbaoui  2 , Gabriele Meyer-Lotz  1 , Christoph Hoeschen  2 , Thomas Frodl  1   3
Affiliations

Volatile Organic Compounds From Breath Differ Between Patients With Major Depression and Healthy Controls

Marian Lueno et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a widespread common disorder. Up to now, there are no easy and frequent to use non-invasive biomarkers that could guide the diagnosis and treatment of MDD. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are different mass concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the exhaled breath between patients with MDD and healthy controls. For this purpose, patients with MDD according to DSM-V and healthy subjects were investigated. VOCs contained in the breath were collected immediately after awakening, after 30 min, and after 60 min in a respective breath sample and measured using PRT-MS (proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry). Concentrations of masses m/z 88, 89, and 90 were significantly decreased in patients with MDD compared with healthy controls. Moreover, changes during the time in mass concentrations of m/z 93 and 69 significantly differed between groups. Differentiation between groups was possible with an AUCs of 0.80-0.94 in ROC analyses. In this first study, VOCs differed between patients and controls, and therefore, might be a promising tool for future studies. Altered masses are conceivable with energy metabolism in a variety of biochemical processes and involvement of the brain-gut-lung-microbiome axis.

Keywords: biomarker; breath gas; classification; clinical utility; depression; volatile organic compounds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors obtained a patent for breath gas analysis in major depressive disorder. Thus, there is no embargo for the publication any more. TF received fees for presentation from Janssen-Cilag, Servier, Neuraxpharm, Recordati, and Otsuka. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Time course and differences between groups for markers 88, 89, and 90 m/z. Mean concentration in counts per second.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Random forest analyses indicate the masses most important for differentiating between patients and controls. These are shown in order of importance.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
ROC curve. Shown is sensitivity and 1-specificity for the combination of markers in the validation sample. First m/z 74 was calculated alone (1x Vars), then subsequently the other important markers are added showing an increase up to the first three markers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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