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In 1846, London surgeon John Hutchinson<\/a> invented the spirometer<\/a>, a thing you blow hard into, to measure the volume of air inspired and expired by the lungs. It\u2019s a pretty basic idea. Incredibly, since then, the technology has barely evolved. Today, the modern spirometer doesn\u2019t even measure the amount of CO2 expelled by the lungs, a crucial data point for assessing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).<\/p>\n Now a Cambridge, UK startup has come up with a radical new technology device that, it claims, is affordable, portable, requires minimal training, and also measures CO2. <\/p>\n Healthtech company TidalSense<\/a> has now closed a \u00a37.5m ($9.3m) fundraising round led by UK-based investors BGF and Downing Ventures.<\/p>\n The Cambridge-based company says its handheld medical device (N-Tidal) detects changes in lung function sensitively and enables\u00a0quicker, more accurate and automated diagnosis of COPD. The ability to measure asthma problems is in the product road-map.<\/p>\n COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide, causing 3.23 million deaths in 2019 according to the World Health Organization<\/a>. And because of the rise in pollution levels across the world, it\u2019s likely to get worse. <\/p>\n Despite the 1840s technology, the market for Spirometers is projected<\/a> to be worth $616 Million in 2023 and is further poised to grow at a CAGR of 5.4%, to hit US$ 1042.3 million by 2033.<\/p>\n However, Spirometers are easily fooled when patients vary how hard they blow, and they cannot easily distinguish between different types of respiratory conditions or provide information on the severity of the condition. Plus it will also take about 30 minutes to test a patient with a Spirometer. In England alone, 200-250\u00a0 per 500,000 of the population\u00a0are awaiting<\/a> a diagnostic test driving waiting times of up to 5-10 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n TidalSense says its N-Tidal device can measure a patient\u2019s breathe in less than five minutes, and send the data to a Cloud-based platform via 2G networks. <\/p>\n Indeed, I tried the device out myself, and, sure enough, it measured the state of my lungs in (more like) less than 3 minutes. <\/p>\n TidalSense team<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In an interview with TechCrunch, co-founder Dr Ameera Patel (pictured, right), CEO of TidalSense and an asthma sufferer herself, told me: \u201cThis hardware has been developed for eight years. There\u2019s several patents on it now. The sensor measures every single molecule of carbon dioxide that comes out of your lungs. What we\u2019ve discovered with collecting all this data is that we can tell really sensitively when your lungs are getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n She says the problem is that people don\u2019t know when they\u2019re symptomatic: \u201cThey don\u2019t know when they\u2019re getting sicker. This device will tell me immediately and I\u2019ll know to increase my inhalers. It\u2019s the difference between being able to manage your symptoms and suddenly landing in hospital because you had no data on the lead-up to things getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n The company says it has benchmarked the device on over 1000 patients, collecting over 2.3 million breaths from patients through clinical studies and trials.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting really really high accuracies on diagnosing COPD because fundamentally, in COPD, your lung structure changes. From the data we built very accurate diagnostic tests, which we\u2019re looking to commercialise with the funding,\u201d Patel added. <\/p>\n Tim Rea, Head of Early Stage Investments at BGF commented in a statement that \u201cthis solution is a prime example of where advanced\u00a0 machine learning techniques can be applied to deliver faster diagnostics, greater efficiencies and better patient outcomes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n