RESUMO
Telemedicine provides an attractive vision for tele-monitoring human health conditions and, thus, offers the opportunity for timely preventing chronic disease. A key limitation of promoting telemedicine in clinic application is the lack of a noninvasive med-tech and effective monitoring platform, which should be wearable and capable of high-performance tele-monitoring of health risk. Here we proposed a volatolomics-based telemedicine for continuously and noninvasively assessing human health status through continuously tracking the variation of volatile markers derived from human breath or skin. Particularly, a nanosensor-based flexible electronic was specifically designed to serve as a powerful platform for implementing the proposed cost-effective healthcare. An all-flexible and highly packed makeup (all functional units were integrated in a 2*2*0.19 cm3 plate) enables an electronic, compact configuration and the capability of resisting negative impact derived from customers' daily movement. Notably, the nanosensor-based electronic demonstrates high specificity, quick response rate (t90% = 4.5 s), and desirable low detection limit (down to 0.117 ppm) in continuous tele-monitoring chronic-disease-related volatile marker (e.g., acetone). Assisted by the power saved light fidelity (Li-Fi) communicating technology, a clinic proof on the specifically designed electronic for noninvasively and uninterrupted assessing potential health risk (e.g., diabetics) is successfully implemented, with the accuracy of around 81%. A further increase in the accuracy of prewarning is predicted by excluding the impact of individual differences such as the gender, age, and smoking status of the customer. These promising pilot results indicate a bright future for the tailor-made nanosensing-device-supported volatolomics-based telemedicine in preventing chronic diseases and increasing patients' survival rate.
Assuntos
Telemedicina , Eletrônica , Humanos , TecnologiaRESUMO
Breath analysis has been considered a noninvasive, safe, and reliable way to diagnose cancer at very early stage. Rapid detection of cancer volatile markers in breath samples via a portable sensing device will lay the foundation of future early cancer diagnosis. Nevertheless, unsatisfactory sensitivity and specificity of these sensing devices restrain the clinical application of breath analysis. Herein, we proposed the strategy of designing the light-regulated electrochemical reaction assisted core-shell heterostructure to address the issue of concern; that is, the photoactive shell will be designed for trigging the light-regulated electrochemical reaction and enhancing the sensitivity while a catalytic active core will play the function of removing interference gases. After screening of various core candidates, Fe2O3 was found to exhibit relatively low conversion rate to 3-methylhexane, which is one of the representative volatile markers for breath analysis, suggesting that mutual interference would be eliminated by Fe2O3. Based on this assumption, an electrochemical sensor comprising core-shell Fe2O3@ZnO-SE (vs Mn-based RE) was fabricated and sensing properties to 6 kinds of volatile markers was evaluated. Interestingly, the thickness of ZnO shell significantly influenced the response behavior; typically, the Fe2O3@ZnO with shell thickness of 4.8 nm offers the sensor high selectivity to 3-methylhexane. In contrast, significantly mutual response interference is observed for the Fe2O3@ZnO with extremely thick/thin shell. Particularly, sensing properties are greatly enhanced upon illumination; a detection limit to 3-methylhexane can even be as low as 0.072 ppm which will be useful in clinic application. Besides, the high selectivity of the sensor to 3-methylhexane is further confirmed by the testing of simulated breath samples. In summary, we anticipate that the strategy proposed in this research will be a starting point for artificially tailoring the sensitivity and selectivity of future sensing devices.