Breathalyser detects Parkinson’s disease with more than 80% accuracy in at-risk people: Early diagnosis helps to prevent devastating symptoms

Home / Clinical Practice / Breathalyser detects Parkinson’s disease with more than 80% accuracy in at-risk people: Early diagnosis helps to prevent devastating symptoms
August 03, 2018August 3, 2018
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  • Parkinson’s occurs when nerve cells that produce the chemical dopamine die
  • By the time of diagnosis, most of these nerve cells have already died
  • This limits patients’ treatment options and causes their symptoms to worsen
  • Device is better than standard diagnosis smell test, which is 73% accurate
  • Parkinson’s affects one in 500 people in the UK and up to one million in the US

A breathalyzer with more than 80 percent accuracy could diagnose Parkinson’s disease in at-risk people before they develop symptoms, new research suggests.

Parkinson’s occurs when nerve cells that produce the chemical dopamine, which is responsible for coordinating movement, die.

By the time most patients are diagnosed, many of their nerve cells have already died, which limits their treatment options and causes symptoms, such as tremor and rigid muscles, to get worse.

The breathalyzer detects Parkinson’s with 81 percent accuracy in patients who have been diagnosed but not yet started treatment, an Israeli study found.

This accuracy is better than smell tests at 73 percent and almost as good as ultrasound scans at 92 percent, which are the standard diagnostic methods.

Parkinson’s affects around one in 500 people in the UK and up to one million in the US.

A breathalyser with more than 80 per cent accuracy could diagnose Parkinson's (stock)

A breathalyzer with more than 80 percent accuracy could diagnose Parkinson’s (stock)

How does the device work? 

The researchers, from the Israel Institute of Technology, developed a breathalyzer with 40 sensors, which each had a chemical attached that can bind to certain molecules in the breath.

This binding changes the breathalyzer’s ability to measure electric currents that pass through it.

When previously given to Parkinson’s patients and healthy volunteers, the breathalyzer detected differences in the participants’ breaths.

How the research was carried out 

The researchers tested the breathalyzer on the exhaled breath of 29 newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients who had not yet started medication for their condition.

These results were then compared to those of 19 healthy people of a similar age to the patients.

Although the scientists claim more studies are required, they hope the breathalyzer could offer at-risk people a small, portable way of assessing if they may have Parkinson’s without the need for highly trained specialists.

Arthritis and asthma medication reduces a person’s risk of Parkinson’s

This comes after research released last May suggested arthritis and asthma medication reduces a person’s risk of Parkinson’s disease by up to one-third and could pave the way for a new treatment.

People who take corticosteroids, which are commonly prescribed for asthma, psoriasis and ulcerative colitis, are 20 percent less at risk of suffering tremors, a study found.

IMDH inhibitors, which are used to treat arthritis, Crohn’s and organ transplant rejection, reduce people’s risk of developing Parkinson’s by around a third, the research adds.

Lead author Dr. Brad Racette, from the University of Washington, said: ‘We’ve found that taking certain classes of immunosuppressant drugs reduces the risk of developing Parkinson’s.

‘Our next step is to conduct a study with people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s to see whether these drugs have the effect on the immune system we’d expect.’

Although unclear, Parkinson’s may be caused by an overactive immune system, which the drugs work to reduce.

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