Semiportable electrochemical instrument for determining carbon monoxide in breath

Measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) in breath can be used for the diagnosis of hemolytic disease. A small, semiportable, easy-to-operate CO instrument was developed at Stanford University and tested at 12 Neonatal Research Network Centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. A syringe pump delivers 7.7 mL of sample per minute through an activate carbon filter to an electrochemical (EC) sensor having a sensitivity of 0.10 +/- 0.01 V per 1 microL/L CO in air. The electronically processed sensor signal is displayed on a digital multimeter. For a typical end-tidal CO measurement, corrected for inhaled CO, three 10- to 12-mL breath and room air samples are manually or mechanically collected and analyzed. CO determination in breath samples from 108 healthy, 1-day-old infants of nonsmoking mothers compared favorably with determinations by gas chromatography (GC), 1.3 +/- 0.8 vs 1.2 +/- 0.8 (mean +/- SD), respectively, with a regression equation of EC = 0.95 GC+0.13 (r2 = 0.98). The results demonstrate that the EC-CO instrument yields results that are comparable with those obtained by the more difficult to perform GC assay.