What question did this study set out to answer?

To create a diagnostic model integrating urine VOC profiles and clinical features for UTI detection.

February 14, 2026Open Access

Urine volatile organic compounds profiling via GC-IMS combined with machine learning: a powerful diagnostic and pathogen differentiation tool for urinary tract infections

Key Points

To create a diagnostic model integrating urine VOC profiles and clinical features for UTI detection.
Conducted a prospective cohort study of 258 adults with suspected UTI.
Collected urine samples for urinalysis, culture, and VOC analysis using GC-IMS.
Trained machine learning models using VOC and clinical data to assess performance metrics.
Identified 11 differentially expressed VOCs between infected and non-infected groups.
Random Forest model showed superior performance with an AUC of 0.914 and accuracy of 82.1%.
Acetic acid and benzaldehyde were confirmed as strong independent predictors of UTI.

Abstract

Background The diagnostic delay associated with standard urine culture necessitates rapid, accurate alternatives for urinary tract infection (UTI) management. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by microbes represent a promising source of metabolic biomarkers for infection diagnosis. Objective To develop and validate a diagnostic model for UTI by integrating urine VOCs profiles obtained via gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) with clinical features using machine learning. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study of 258 adults with suspected UTI. Clean-catch midstream urine samples were collected for clinical urinalysis, culture (reference standard), and GC-IMS-based VOCs analysis. VOCs and clinical data were used to train and test machine learning models (Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine). Model performance was assessed by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and decision curve analysis. Results Among 258 enrolled patients, 152 (58.9%) were culture-positive. We identified 11 differentially expressed VOCs between infected and non-infected groups, with acetic acid, benzaldehyde, and furan being the most significant (Bonferroni-adjusted p 0.05). A Random Forest model integrating both VOCs and clinical features demonstrated superior performance (AUC of 0.914, with an accuracy of 82.1% (95% CI: 71.8-89.8%), sensitivity of 87.0%, specificity of 75.0%, and an F1-score of 0.851) compared to models using clinical-only (AUC 0.831) or VOC-only (AUC 0.850). Multivariate analysis confirmed acetic acid (OR 3.27) and benzaldehyde (OR 4.95) as strong independent predictors of UTI. Furthermore, VOCs profiles allowed moderate discrimination between Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial infections (AUC 0.800) and exhibited pathogen-specific patterns. Conclusion The integration of urine VOCs profiles obtained by GC-IMS with routine clinical parameters using machine learning achieves high diagnostic accuracy for UTI and shows potential for rapid pathogen differentiation. This strategy could improve UTI diagnostics, enabling faster, more precise antibiotic therapy.

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Cite This Study

Zheng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/699010382ccff479cfe56bd2 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2026.1745468

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