GC-MS & SIFT-MS results
Seven VOCs differed significantly between recovered, mild rattling,
moderate rattling and severe rattling infants (table 2). No VOCs
differed significantly between ‘recovered’ and ‘mild rattling’ infants.
2D scatterplot based on ethylenimine and methenamine showed overlap
between recovered and mild rattling infants (figure 1). Additional
analysis of the recovered and mild rattling group versus the moderate
and severe rattling group showed that eight VOCs were significantly
different (table 2).
Three DMs were developed for each of the four diagnostic groups and
compared in a one-vs-all approach. DM 1 included the significant VOCs,
DM 2 also included PROs and DM 3 only included
PROs. The same DMs were developed for the
differentiation between recovered/mild rattlers and moderate/severe
rattlers. ROC-AUC, accuracy, sensitivity and specificity are shown in
table 3 and table 4. Results of the SIFT-MS were very similar to those
of the GC-MS (supplement section 4). Accuracies of the 3 DMs based on
exhaled breath ranged between 59.21-69.74%, while for the DMs based on
exhaled breath and PROs they ranged between
65.79-88.16%.