Metabolomics

, Volume 10, Issue 6, pp 1113–1120 | Cite as

Application of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) in conjunction with multivariate classification for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases

  • Michael Cauchi
  • Dawn P. Fowler
  • Christopher Walton
  • Claire Turner
  • Wenjing Jia
  • Rebekah N. Whitehead
  • Lesley Griffiths
  • Claire Dawson
  • Hao Bai
  • Rosemary H. Waring
  • David B. Ramsden
  • John O. Hunter
  • Jeffrey A. Cole
  • Conrad Bessant
Original Article
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis are a growing concern in the developed world. Current techniques for diagnosis are often costly, time consuming, inefficient, of great discomfort to the patient, and offer poor sensitivities and specificities. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a new methodology for the non-invasive diagnosis of such diseases using a combination of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and chemometrics. Several potential sample matrices were tested: blood, breath, faeces and urine. Faecal samples provided the only statistically significant results, providing discrimination between CD and healthy controls with an overall classification accuracy of 85 % (78 % specificity; 93 % sensitivity). Differentiating CD from other diseases proved more challenging, with overall classification accuracy dropping to 79 % (83 % specificity; 68 % sensitivity). This diagnostic performance compares well with the gold standard technique of colonoscopy, suggesting that GC–MS may have potential as a non-invasive screening tool.

Keywords

Gastrointestinal diseases Irritable bowel syndrome Crohn’s disease Ulcerative colitis Gas chromatography mass spectrometry Partial least squares discriminant analysis 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the Wellcome Trust for funding the work (Project 080238/Z/06/Z).

Supplementary material

11306_2014_650_MOESM1_ESM.docx (33 kb)
Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 32 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • Michael Cauchi
    • 1
  • Dawn P. Fowler
    • 2
  • Christopher Walton
    • 2
  • Claire Turner
    • 3
  • Wenjing Jia
    • 4
  • Rebekah N. Whitehead
    • 4
  • Lesley Griffiths
    • 4
  • Claire Dawson
    • 5
  • Hao Bai
    • 6
  • Rosemary H. Waring
    • 4
  • David B. Ramsden
    • 4
  • John O. Hunter
    • 5
  • Jeffrey A. Cole
    • 4
  • Conrad Bessant
    • 7
  1. 1.Centre for Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, Building 63Cranfield UniversityBedfordshireUK
  2. 2.School of Applied SciencesCranfield UniversityBedfordshireUK
  3. 3.The Department of Life, Health and Chemical SciencesOpen UniversityMilton KeynesUK
  4. 4.School of BiosciencesUniversity of BirminghamBirminghamUK
  5. 5.Gastroenterology Research UnitAddenbrooke’s HospitalCambridgeUK
  6. 6.School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of BirminghamBirminghamUK
  7. 7.School of Biological and Chemical SciencesQueen Mary University of LondonLondonUK

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