Brasier Noé, Eckstein Jens
CMIO Research Group, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Department of Internal Medicine, Kantonsspital Obwalden, Sarnen, Switzerland.
Digit Biomark. 2019 Dec 5;3(3):155-165. doi: 10.1159/000504387. eCollection 2019 Sep-Dec.
Sweat has been associated with health and disease ever since it was linked to high body temperature and exercise. It contains a broad range of electrolytes, proteins, and lipids, and therefore hosts a broad panel of potential noninvasive biomarkers. The development of novel smartphone-based biosensors will enable a more sophisticated, patient-driven sweat analysis. This will provide a broad range of novel digital biomarkers. Digital biomarkers are of increasing interest because they deliver various relevant longitudinal health data. To date, investigations on digital biomarkers have focused on creating objective measurements of function. Sweat analysis using smartphone-based biosensors has the potential to provide initial noninvasive metabolic feedback and therefore represents a promising complement and a source for next-generation digital biomarkers. From this viewpoint, we discuss state-of-the-art sweat research, focusing on the clinical implementation of sweat in medicine. Sweat provides biomarkers that represent direct metabolic feedback and is therefore expected to be the next generation of digital biomarkers. With regard to its broad application in various fields of medicine, we see a clear need to evolve the internet-enabled field of sweat expertise: iSudorology.
自从汗液与高体温和运动联系起来后，它就一直与健康和疾病相关。汗液含有多种电解质、蛋白质和脂质，因此拥有大量潜在的非侵入性生物标志物。新型基于智能手机的生物传感器的开发将使更复杂的、由患者驱动的汗液分析成为可能。这将提供大量新型数字生物标志物。数字生物标志物越来越受到关注，因为它们能提供各种相关的纵向健康数据。迄今为止，对数字生物标志物的研究主要集中在创建功能的客观测量方法上。使用基于智能手机的生物传感器进行汗液分析有可能提供初步的非侵入性代谢反馈，因此是下一代数字生物标志物的一个有前景的补充和来源。从这个角度出发，我们讨论当前汗液研究的现状，重点关注汗液在医学中的临床应用。汗液提供了代表直接代谢反馈的生物标志物，因此有望成为下一代数字生物标志物。鉴于其在医学各个领域的广泛应用，我们清楚地认识到需要发展具备互联网功能的汗液专业领域：智能汗液学。
