Exhaled breath condensate metabolomics in rheumatoid arthritis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics on exhaled breath condensate as a biomarker of lung involvement in rheumatoid arthritis
IRAS ID
138980
Contact name
Benjamin Fisher
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Research summary
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects up to 1% of the population and is marked by inflammation (heat, redness and swelling) of the joints which can result in joint damage and disability. The cause is unknown but some research has suggested that inflammation in the lung may be a trigger, and that this process may begin years before the onset of joint symptoms. There are no good but simple tests for lung inflammation that could be used to test this idea in groups of people at risk for RA but who are otherwise well. Research has suggested that the small waste products of the energy producing, building and turnover processes of the cells in the body (‘metabolites’) can be detected in the breath we breathe out. There are thousands of these small metabolites, and the production of some of these would be influenced by inflammation in the lung. Collecting this breath as a liquid by breathing into a cooled tube (‘exhaled breath condensate’; EBC) would allow it to be later tested by a process called ‘nuclear magnetic resonance’, which measures a large number of these metabolites at the same time (‘metabolomics’), producing a pattern or ‘fingerprint’. Recently, researchers have found that the metabolic fingerprint in EBC, can distinguish patients with various lung diseases from people who are healthy. In this project we want to see if we can do the same for people with RA, in order to test the idea that lung changes are common in RA, but also to provide a quick, cheap and harmless tool to investigate the lung in much larger groups of patients and in healthy people who might be at risk of RA. If such a follow-on project was successful, it may shed light on the causes of RA and predict who is at risk.
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/WM/0440
Date of REC Opinion
17 Dec 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion