Enhancing at Home Health Monitoring for Chronic Diseases

    Proper management of metabolic waste is critical to maintaining good health. The measurement of breath ammonia allows for enhanced care for two critical patient populations. 

    1. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and at home monitoring of this and similar diseases is challenging. This prevents optimal care for these patients by increasing morbidity and decreasing clinician touchpoints along the patient journey.

    2. Urea cycle disorders (UCD) are rare diseases that result in the inability of the metabolic system to convert ammonia into urea. This is typically done via the urea cycle. As a result these patients are at risk of hyperammonemia and must closely manage and monitor their ammonia levels.

    At Enhance Diagnostics we have developed a platform, at home, breath test for ammonia. Clinical data indicates strong correlation between breath ammonia and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) in patients with CKD, as well as direct correlation to blood ammonia levels in patients with UCDs. Our test significantly enhances patient monitoring in the home without necessitating more frequent in-person visits.

    Potential advantages for chronic kidney disease patients:

    • The Enhance Diagnostics device allows for quantitative, real-time patient monitoring in the home
    • A blood test is not needed to get insight into disease progression
    • The promise of low cost, non-invasive, and private testing

    Urea Cycle Disorders:

    • Testing can be performed at home and in real time
    • A blood test is not needed to get insight into the ammonia level at any given time
    • Each test will provide significant cost savings to the patient

    References

    Chan et al., Breath Ammonia Is a Useful Biomarker Predicting Kidney Function in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients. Biomedicines. 2020 Oct 31;8(11):468. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines8110468.

    Bevc et al., Measurement of breath ammonia for detection of patients with chronic kidney disease. Clin Nephrol. 2017;88(13):14-17. doi: 10.5414/CNP88FX04.

    Das and Pal. Review—Non-Invasive Monitoring of Human Health by Exhaled Breath Analysis: A Comprehensive Review. 2020 J. Electrochem. Soc. 167 037562. Doi: 10.1149/1945-7111/ab67a6.