Breath Test

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:

    “It is singular to look round upon a country where the dreams of sages, smiled at as utopian, seem distinctly realized, a people voluntarily submitting to laws of their own imposing, with arms in their hands respecting the voice of a government which their breath created and which their breath could in a moment destroy!”
    —Frances Wright (1795–1852)

    “He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,—it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)