The exhaled breath from patients with lung cancer has distinct characteristics that allow those with the disease to be identified by an "electronic nose," according to a report in the first issue for June 2005 of the American Thoracic Society's peer-reviewed American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Researchers reported the results of measuring exhaled breath of 14 individuals with bronchogenic carcinoma and 45 control subjects without cancer to develop the screening capability.

The authors said that they hypothesized that an "electronic nose" would detect lung cancer on the basis of complex "smellprints" of numerous volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath from individuals with lung cancer as compared with either other non-cancerous lung disease or healthy controls.

According to the authors, analysis of results from the "electronic nose" demonstrated its ability to discriminate between samples from lung cancer patients and those from other groups during the initial discovery and training phase of the study.

Next, the researchers tested the "electronic nose" on 14 lung cancer cases, and 62 without the disease. Of the 14 cancer patients, 10 had a positive exhaled breath test, and 4 had a negative. Of the 62 non-cancerous patients, 57 had a negative exhaled breath test and 5 had a positive.

They said that in this population with a lung cancer prevalence of 18 percent, positive and negative predictive values were slightly over 66 percent and approximately 92 percent, respectively.

The researchers noted that their results prove the feasibility of the concept of using the "electronic nose" to detect and manage lung cancer. However, further study is needed to understand the optimal strategies for using it in population-based screening.

American Thoracic Society Journal news tips for June 2005 (first issue)

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