A point-of-care breath test in development can identify people with metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease or steatohepatitis with varying degrees of fibrosis as accurately as a biopsy or transient elastography evaluation, according to results from a pilot study.
The test (DiaNose, NaNose Medical) overcomes a labor-intensive step with existing breath assays, the complicated process of measuring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath as biomarkers of hepatic metabolism. Instead, the new nanotechnology-based sensing device relies on a semi-selective chemiresistor sensor array and machine learning technologies to detect liver fibrosis, the investigators reported at the EASL Congress 2025 (abstract WED-469).