SAN FRANCISCO (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- An "electronic nose" may one day be used to diagnose asthma, say researchers out of the Netherlands and Italy presenting the results from a new study.

The device contains chemical vapor sensors that react to volatile organic compounds in a person's exhaled breath that may be used as markers of lung disease. These compounds include isoprene, methanol and isopropanol. The electronic nose is a newer version of a sensor that has been used in the food, wine and perfume industries. It is also being used as an aid against terrorism, to sniff out explosives or toxic chemicals in the air ... and being used to diagnose lung cancer.

In this new study, the "nose" was used to detect smell prints in asthmatics, but these were people already diagnosed. The main limitation was it wasn't as powerful at discriminating severe from mild asthma. But study investigator Silvano Dragonieri, M.D., describes it as a cheap, noninvasive, easy- to-perform potential diagnostic tool. He says, "The next step is to see whether the nose can diagnose new patients with asthma. It's still a futuristic device -- one day different electronic noses may be built to detect specific diseases."