BACKGROUND: Sepsis is one of the main causes of death in adult intensive care 
units. The major drawbacks of the different methods used for its diagnosis and 
monitoring are their inability to provide fast responses and unsuitability for 
bedside use. In this study, performed using a rat sepsis model, we evaluate 
breath analysis with Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) as a fast, portable and 
non-invasive strategy.
METHODS: This study was carried out on 20 Sprague-Dawley rats. Ten rats were 
injected with lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli and ten rats were IP 
injected with regular saline. After a 24-h period, the rats were anaesthetized 
and their exhaled breaths were collected and measured with IMS and SPME-gas 
chromatography/mass spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) and the data were analyzed with 
multivariate data processing techniques.
RESULTS: The SPME-GC/MS dataset processing showed 92% accuracy in the 
discrimination between the two groups, with a confidence interval of between 
90.9% and 92.9%. Percentages for sensitivity and specificity were 98% 
(97.5-98.5%) and 85% (84.6-87.6%), respectively. The IMS database processing 
generated an accuracy of 99.8% (99.7-99.9%), a specificity of 99.6% (99.5-99.7%) 
and a sensitivity of 99.9% (99.8-100%).
CONCLUSIONS: IMS involving fast analysis times, minimum sample handling and 
portable instrumentation can be an alternative for continuous bedside 
monitoring. IMS spectra require data processing with proper statistical models 
for the technique to be used as an alternative to other methods. These animal 
model results suggest that exhaled breath can be used as a point-of-care tool 
for the diagnosis and monitoring of sepsis.