Chapter 7: Origin and Emission of Volatile Biomarkers in Skin Check Access

Skin volatile biomarkers have great potential to become a field-oriented approach for evaluating health conditions. The profiles of biomarkers are highly dependent on the sampled skin area because the distribution of the skin glands is not homogeneous, creating a large number of potential sampling points to gain better profiling of volatile compounds. This chapter reviews the different origins of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and currently available literature on the detection of skin VOCs in the diagnosis and monitoring of diseases. Mass spectrometry and sensor-based systems for capturing skin VOCs are presented and discussed, as well as the expectation of their becoming medical devices to be used in medical or in-field settings.