Breath analysis detects lung cancer

A type of “electronic nose” can identify patients with lung cancer by analyzing exhaled breath, according to a report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine for June.

As the name implies, an electronic nose is a device that analyzes volatile organic compounds. These devices, which have been successfully use in the food industry and other commercial applications, rely on chemical vapor sensors that are capable of detecting subtle differences in odorant molecules.In a training phase, the “nose” analyzed the breath of 14 patients with lung cancer and 45 healthy controls. The data from this phase were applied to a second group of 76 subjects that included 14 with and 62 without lung cancer.The initial phase showed that there were, in fact, distinct properties to the breath of lung cancer patients, senior author Dr. Serpil C. Erzurum, from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, and colleagues note.In the validation phase, the nose had a 71.4% sensitivity and a 91.9% specificity in identifying lung cancer patients. The positive and negative predictive values were 66.6% and 93.4%, respectively. “This study demonstrates the feasibility of clinical monitoring of volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath using a multisensor electronic nose as a relatively convenient and noninvasive test in patients with suspected lung cancer,” the authors conclude.(Source: Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2005;171:1286-1291: Reuters Health: Oncolink: June 2005.)