Using a specially developed breath collection technique and computer-assisted gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), we have identified in the exhaled air of lung cancer patients several volatile organic compounds that appear to be associated with the disease. The GC/MS profiles of 12 samples from lung cancer patients and 17 control samples were analyzed by using general computerized statistical procedures to distinguish lung cancer patients from controls. The selected volatile compounds had sufficient diagnostic power in the GC/MS profiles to allow almost complete differentiation between the two groups in a limited patient population.

Expired air samples have been collected from a carefully selected population of normal healthy human subjects under controlled experimental conditions. The samples were concentrated and analyzed by quantitative, reproducible and sensitive techniques which resulted in well-defined composite compositional and occurrence profiles of the organic constituents present in normal expired air. The composite profiles provide valuable baseline information upon which suitable correlation studies may be advanced toward the use of human expired air for diagnostic purposes.

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Expired air samples have been analyzed from three groups of human subjects (normal, liver dysfunction, lung cancer) and the baboon (Papio anubus). Of the several hundred compounds present, three compounds were of particular interest due to their structural relationship to the isoprenoid-type intermediates in the sterol pathway. These compounds were 1-methyl-4-(1-methyl-ethenyl)-cyclohexene, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, and 6,10-dimethyl-5,9-undecadien-2-one. Hydroxyacetone was also found in all samples screened. The relationship of these compounds to the non-sterol pathway of mevalonate metabolism is discussed.

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