Your Breath Can Now Detect Stomach Ulcers

Stomach ulcers can be pretty hard to detect and often one has to undergo complicated processes like biopsy or endoscopy for detection of peptic ulcers as well as non ulcerous dyspepsia, however, according to Manik Pradhan, from S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, there’s now a device that can help detect peptic ulcer and non ulcerous dyspepsia just with a puff of air, that is, the suspected patient has to just breathe on the device and it can be detected if she or he suffers from ulcer.

It is said that this detecting device is based on mass spectrometry and laser spectrometry and aims at early detection of the ulcer disease, which can then be followed by follow-up treatments.

It is a great step and relief for suspected patients to have a smooth and easy detection of stomach ulcers instead of going for painful and costly processes like endoscopy and biopsy.

The whole device and technology were showcased at the recently held 104^th Indian Science Congress.

According to Mr. Pradhan, the detection of stomach ulcer on the device through a puff of air isn’t that shocking as it seems, because technically, the breath of humans contains over 4000 molecules and most of them consist of some indicators for a list of diseases.

Mr. Pradhan added that these molecules contain indications for some metabolism disorders as well as diseases, and in certain conditions, their concentration to changes, and that’s precisely how the detection of peptic ulcer and non-ulcerous dyspepsia takes place.

So far reports say that the device for detection works perfectly for children as well as elderly people and up until now has given around 95% success in detection of stomach ulcers.

There’s no risk of cross-infection in this test and hence, it can be repeated as many times as required without any fear.

Recently India has filed for a patent for this technology and a team of researchers is now working to have the whole technology integrated with smartphones.