Breath aerosol management and collection system
First Claim
1. A method of collecting a sample of non-gaseous aerosol in exhaled breath, comprising:
- inhaling a breath of air through a filter to remove ambient aerosols from the breath of air;
exhaling the breath of air through a collector and collecting aerosols from the exhaled breath.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Aerosol collectors 10, 120 include pre-collection filters 100, 126, aerosol collection chambers 30, 130, and other exhaled breath conditioning and control features for providing not only accurate and efficient, but also reliable and reproducible aerosol collections that can be used in standardizations and can be compared in meaningful ways to other exhaled breath aerosol collections from the same test subject and from different test subjects. The aerosol collector 10 example includes electrostatic collection components 34, 40, and the aerosol collector 120 includes nucleating condensation components 168, 172 and vortex collection components 132, 138. Both include analyte extraction apparatus 50, 124.
114 Citations
76 Claims
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1. A method of collecting a sample of non-gaseous aerosol in exhaled breath, comprising:
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inhaling a breath of air through a filter to remove ambient aerosols from the breath of air;
exhaling the breath of air through a collector and collecting aerosols from the exhaled breath. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A method of collecting a sample of non-gaseous aerosol in exhaled breath, comprising:
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enhancing a property of the aerosol in the exhaled breath in a manner that renders the aerosol more susceptible to a collection force; and
applying the collection force to the targeted aerosol to facilitate collection of the aerosol. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8)
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9. Aerosol collector apparatus for collecting aerosol from exhaled breath of a test subject, comprising:
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an aerosol collection chamber with a collection surface for collecting aerosol particles and/or droplets from exhaled breath;
a conduit for channeling the exhaled breath from the test subject to the aerosol collection chamber; and
a pre-collection filter positioned in close enough proximity to the aerosol collection chamber to accommodate filtering ambient air inhaled by the test subject that is comprised in said exhaled breath of the test subject. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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39. A method for the collection of non-gaseous substances suspended in exhaled breath from a human or animal test subject, comprising the steps of:
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causing the subject to exhale into a receiving chamber, and applying an urging force directly to said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath within said receiving chamber, and presenting a collecting surface to the interior of said receiving chamber, said collecting surface comprising a solid or a liquid to which the force urges the suspended non-gaseous substances to collect thereupon, and removing the collected non-gaseous substances for further processing, and displacing residual exhaled air, substantially depleted of said non-gaseous substances, with a new volume of exhaled breath, whereby the collected material is useful for analysis and comprises substantially all of the useful said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath but only a minor fraction of exhaled vapors. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55)
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56. A method for the collection of non-gaseous substances suspended in exhaled breath from a human or animal test subject, comprising the steps of:
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causing the subject to exhale into a receiving chamber, and applying an electrostatic force directly to said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath within said receiving chamber, and presenting a collecting surface to the interior of said receiving chamber, said collecting surface comprising a solid or a liquid to which said electrostatic force urges the suspended non-gaseous substances to collect thereupon, and removing the collected non-gaseous substances for further processing, and displacing residual exhaled air, substantially depleted of said non-gaseous substances, with a new volume of exhaled breath, whereby the collected material is useful for analysis and comprises substantially all of the useful said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath but only a minor fraction of exhaled vapors. - View Dependent Claims (57, 58, 59, 60)
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61. A method for the collection of non-gaseous substances suspended in exhaled breath from a human or animal test subject, comprising the steps of:
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causing the subject to exhale into a receiving chamber, and applying a centrifugal force directly to said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath within said receiving chamber, and presenting a collecting surface to the interior of said receiving chamber, said collecting surface comprising a solid or a liquid to which said centrifugal force urges the suspended non-gaseous substances to collect thereupon, and removing the collected non-gaseous substances for further processing, and displacing residual exhaled air, substantially depleted of said non-gaseous substances, with a new volume of exhaled breath, whereby the collected material is useful for analysis and comprises substantially all of the useful said non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath but only a minor fraction of exhaled vapors. - View Dependent Claims (62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72)
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73. A method to assure reproducibility of the collection of non-gaseous substances suspended in exhaled breath from a human or animal test subject, comprising the steps of:
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providing a removing means to eliminate substantially all suspended non-gaseous particles and liquid aerosol droplets from ambient air drawn into an inlet conduit, and conducting the cleaned intake air within said conduit to a first connecting means to said test subject'"'"'s respiratory airway, and providing a first one-way valve means causing air to flow in a direction from said inlet conduit to said first connecting means, said first one-way valve means being situated at any effective location in the inlet conduit, and causing the subject to inhale said cleaned intake air, and conducting the consequent exhaled breath through an exhalation conduit, and providing a second one-way valve means causing air to flow in a direction from said first connecting means through said exhalation conduit, said second one-way valve means being situated at any effective location in said exhalation conduit, thereby substantially eliminating substances external to said test subject from being inhaled by said test subject, and assuring that substantially all non-gaseous substances suspended in said exhaled breath comprise only those arising from said test subject'"'"'s respiratory system. - View Dependent Claims (74, 75, 76)
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Specification