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E-nose sniffs out cancer
Source: (cancerfacts.com)
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
CLEVELAND – June 1, 2005 – Lung cancer and other lung diseases might one day be detected by a simple breath test say researchers.
In a study appearing in the June 1, 2005 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers led by Dr. Roberto F. Machado of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, used a highly sensitive "electronic nose" used in the commercial food industry to correctly identify patients with lung cancer.
"We hypothesized that the electronic nose could identify and discriminate between lung diseases, especially bronchogenic carcinoma," they wrote. "The exhaled breath of patients with lung cancer has distinct characteristics that can be identified with an electronic nose. The results provide feasibility to the concept of using the electronic nose for managing and detecting lung cancer."
The electronic nose uses an array of chemical sensors coupled to a computer programmed with a pattern-recognition formula. The sensor array "sniffs" the vapors from a sample and provides a set of measurements; the recognition software compares the pattern of the measurements to stored patterns for known materials.
In the study, the researchers first "trained" the electronic device by analyzing the chemical components in the breath of 14 individuals with lung cancer. They then compared those chemicals detected in the cancer patients with the chemical components in the breath of 45 people without cancer.
In a separate group of 76 individuals, of whom 14 had lung cancer and 62 did not, the researchers analyzed the breath samples. The electronic nose correctly identified 71.4 percent of those who had lung cancer and 91.9 percent of those who did not.
While the researchers say they have a long way to go before they develop a clinical test, the research shows that such technology is feasible and might one day provide a much less invasive method of early detection of cancer and other lung diseases.
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