A breath test is a type of test performed on air generated from the act of exhalation.
Types include:
- Breathalyzer - By far the most common usage of this term relates to the legal breath test to determine if a person is driving under the influence of alcohol.
- Hydrogen breath test - it is becoming more and more common for people to undertake a medical test for clinical diagnosis of dietary disabilities such as fructose intolerance, fructose malabsorption, lactose intolerance and lactulose intolerance.
- The presence of Helicobacter pylori (in peptic ulcer disease) can be tested for with the urea breath test.
- Exhaled nitric oxide is a breath test that might signal airway inflammation such as in asthma.
- Breath Tests for Diseases have been developed by companies like Menssana Research, Inc. for early detection of Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer, Pulmonary TB and many others, to serve as an adjunct to existing medical tests. Phase II and Phase III clinical studies are under way to confirm the efficacy of these breath tests.
Famous quotes containing the words breath and/or test:
““You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, “that ‘I breath when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“I am willing, for a money consideration, to test this physical strength, this nervous force, and muscular power with which I’ve been gifted, to show that they will bear a certain strain. If I break down, if my brain gives way under want of sleep, my heart ceases to respond to the calls made on my circulatory system, or the surcharged veins of my extremities burst—if, in short, I fall helpless, or it may be, dead on the track, then I lose my money.”
—Ada Anderson (1860–?)