Reagent-free VOC sensing

UrineSense uses volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urine as a non-invasive signal. “Reagent-free” means our sensing approach reads gas-phase chemistry directly instead of relying on consumable strips or wet reagents.

Urinary VOCs as non-invasive biomarkers

Recent reviews and clinical studies on urinary VOCs and disease detection.

Multiple studies and reviews highlight that VOCs in urine can act as promising non-invasive biomarkers for several cancers and metabolic conditions, especially when combined with pattern-recognition or machine learning.

For example, research has:

• Shown that urinary VOC patterns can distinguish cancer patients from healthy controls in several tumor types.
• Used technologies such as Ion Mobility Spectrometry and HS-SPME/GC-MS to identify diagnostic VOC panels in urine.
• Combined VOC measurements with machine learning models to classify bladder, esophageal and other cancers with encouraging accuracy in early studies.

What “reagent-free” means here

Traditional urine testing often depends on reagents—for example, dipsticks that change color because of specific chemical reactions. These require consumable strips, manual handling, and explicit user participation.

VOC-based sensing instead samples the volatile molecules naturally emitted from urine into the air. With appropriate sensors and sampling geometry, the device can:

• Capture VOCs passively from the plume above the bowl or urinal.
• Measure concentrations and patterns electronically, without adding reagents to the urine.
• Transform those measurements into feature vectors that can be analyzed over time.

That is why UrineSense describes its approach as reagent-free VOC sensing: the system reads gas-phase chemistry directly, aligns those patterns with published evidence on urinary VOC biomarkers, and avoids consumable strips or cups in daily use.