A Strong Whiff of Hope for Early Cancer Detection

Recently, the Whiff-Guys sniffed into the fascinating field of Olfactory Diagnosis, a valuable diagnostic procedure in which a physician literally smells a patient’s breath for clues (a rotten apple smell, for instance, might indicate that testing for diabetes is in order, while fishy breath might point toward liver disease). Unfortunately, the limited abilities of even the most talented of human noses have severely limited the range of usefulness for the practice, and led to research in such areas as the use of diagnostic dogs at Torum’s Nicolaus Copernicus University and breath analysis using the technique called gas chromatography by Nobel-prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling.

So, how reliable is olfactory diagnosis? Would it be possible to create an electronic device which might detect, say, cancer cells, with 50% accuracy? 75%?

How about an astonishing 92%? A new clinical trial carried out on 100 patients by a team of Israeli scientists was able to detect the presence of cancer cells and to pinpoint the location and nature of the tumor with 92% accuracy!

Modeled on the olfactory system of a dog, the new electronic nose “sniffs” the breath of a patient for traces of specific molecules which are emanated by cancerous tumors and circulated through the bloodstream to the lungs to leave the body when the patient exhales. By detecting the presence of this molecule on the patient’s breath, the device is able to diagnose cancerous tissue in its earliest stage of development. Dr. Hossam Haick, of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute in the Technion’s Faculty of Chemical Engineering heads the team that developed the nose. In the trial, which was conducted in cooperation with Professor Abraham Kuten, Director of the Rambam Medical Center Oncology Institute, breath samples were taken from 40 healthy people and 62 cancer patients (suffering from lung, breast, colon, prostate, head and neck cancer) being treated in the hospital. The participants breathed into bags which were transferred to the Technion for testing, and the results were compared to details of the patients’ diseases according to the hospital’s records. The electronic nose was able to distinguish between healthy and sick patients, and could also identify different types of cancer with–yes–a 92% success rate!

While Professor Kuten cautions, “These findings are impressive, but initial, and must be verified in research on a larger number of patients,” the study represents a ray of hope for the millions of people who live in dread of succumbing to the disease.