• Philipp Lirk, Florian Bodrogi, Martina Deibl, Christian M Kähler, Joshua Colvin, Berthold Moser, Germar Pinggera, Hartmann Raifer, Josef Rieder, and Wolfgang Schobersberger.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Clinical Division of General Internal Medicine, Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria.
• Wien. Klin. Wochenschr. 2004 Jan 31; 116 (1-2): 21-5.

AbstractSmoking is the most important single risk factor in current public health. Surveillance of exposure to tobacco smoke may be accomplished using environmental monitoring or in-vivo tests for smoking biomarkers. Acetonitrile exhaled in human breath has been described as a potential marker mirroring recent smoking behavior. The aim of this study was to determine exhaled acetonitrile levels in a sample of 268 volunteers (48 smokers, 220 non-smokers) attending a local health fair. Breath specimens were collected into inert sample bags, with parallel collection of ambient air. Subsequently, all samples were analysed using proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry (PTR-MS). Smokers had elevated levels of exhaled acetonitrile compared with non-smokers (p<0.001). Analysis using the receiver-operating-characteristic curve demonstrated that smoking can be predicted with a sensitivity of 79% and a specificity of 91%, using a cut-off concentration of 20.31 parts per billion of acetonitrile. This first field survey of exhaled acetonitrile in a large group of test persons demonstrates the feasibility of a rapid and non-invasive test for recent exposure to tobacco. We conclude that analysis of exhaled-breath acetonitrile may serve as a method of determining recent active smoking behaviour.

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