Background: Although exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is a promising noninvasive sample for detecting respiratory analytes such as glucose, current EBC collection methods yield inconsistent results.
Methods: We developed a custom EBC collection device with a temperature-based algorithm to selectively condense alveolar air for reproducible EBC glucose detection. We characterized the condensate volumes and the corresponding glucose concentrations. We performed a pilot study demonstrating its use during oral glucose tolerance tests.
Results: The novel device selectively captured alveolar air resulting in slightly higher and less variable glucose concentrations than the overall EBC. Participants with type 2 diabetes demonstrated significantly higher blood plasma-EBC glucose ratios than normoglycemic participants.
Conclusions: Temperature-based selective EBC collection allows EBC glucose measurement and is a promising sampling method to distinguish patients with and without diabetes.
Keywords: exhaled breath condensate; glucose; point-of-care diagnostics; type 2 diabetes.