A novel healthcare 4.0 system for testing respiratory diseases based on nanostructured biosensors and fog networking

New digital healthcare models based on advanced bio-sensing technologies are regarded as a possible solution to improve the screening and prevention processes and the overall performance of healthcare supply chains. This is particularly relevant for respiratory diseases, which are currently among the first causes of death and medical expenditures in industrialized countries. This research proposes a new e-health model based on a fog architecture and a smart device, enabling remote diagnostics of respiratory diseases and allowing for decentralized patient testing and self-testing. According to such a model, the patients’ testing is executed through the analysis of the exhaled breath collected using a smart device based on a novel nanostructured sensor and transferring relevant information to the medical staff involved in the diagnosis process. This research proposes an original testing method and system, validated in the lab through a comparative analysis of culture media samples collected from healthy patients, and subsequently exposed to cigarette smoke extract (CSE, an inducer of oxidative stress). The preliminary results obtained demonstrate the validity of the approach proposed, encouraging further experimental analyses on human patients for the implementation into clinical practice.