Tenth anniversary special issue of the Journal of Breath Research: looking forward

摘要

The Journal of Breath Research has now reached its 10th anniversary of publication. From the general public’s perspective, breath analysis had always revolved around drinking and driving, and to some lesser extent pulmonary function testing of athletes. However, at the inception of the journal in 2007, the academic world had already been assessing metabolic processes with measurements of nitric oxide, acetone, isoprene and other endogenous gases, to measure exposures to volatile contaminants and to track anesthetics in surgery. As a parallel to these applications, the dental community had developed extensive research in using bacterial odor emissions to assess the causes of halitosis (bad breath) and establish parameters to track the general health state of the oral cavity. As such, the field of breath research was expanding rapidly and the concept of human biomarker research had developed to include breath-gas measurement in the mantra of ‘blood, breath, and urine’ analysis. Certainly mainstream medical and public health studies were still fixated on blood and urine as traditional biological fluids, however the value of the breath as a non-invasive window into the body’s function was becoming more attractive. The study of exhaled gases is still the main focus of breath research, but exhaled breath condensate (EBC) and aerosols are also being used for diagnostics. Other topic areas are coming to the forefront to expand the field, especially the development of novel analytical instruments and sampling hardware applications.