An electronic nose distinguishes exhaled breath of patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma from controls

A breath test for malignant mesothelioma using an electronic nose

“…In our study, the CPA electronic nose distinguished accurately between benign and malignant ARD, implying that the breath profile of VOCs in MM is very different. Although it might have been expected that MM, a pleural disease rather than an endobronchial disease, would not produce such a change in breath profile, our results are similar to a previous abstract report [28], and also to the reports of PHILLIPS and co-workers et al, [20,[32][33][34] whose work on lung cancer suggests that the change in VOC profile is related to a systemic alteration in metabolism which occurs with malignancy rather than due to a localised event.…”

“…This is the second published report of the use of electronic nose breath profiling in MM and substantiates the promise of this technique as a simple, easy way for detecting malignancy which has previously been reported for lung cancer [15,[17][18][19]. A study by DRAGONIERI et al [28] published very recently, while our paper was under review, also reports high levels of discrimination between patients with MM and those with long-term asbestos exposure using an electronic nose system, with results almost identical to those of our study. This work was performed contemporaneously with ours, substantiating the validity of both groups' results.…”

“…This supported the hypothesis that results of the model were reproducible, with subjects being assigned to the correct class in 13 (86%) out of 15 trials. CPA electronic nose breath prints have previously been shown to be repeatable in other studies with a kappa ranging between 0.75 and 0.91 [28,29].…”

Analysis of volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath for lung cancer diagnosis using a sensor system

“…Electronic noses have been applied to various analysis fields such as food [33,34] and various diseases; diabetes [35], uremia [36], asthma [37], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [38], pulmonary sarcoidosis [39], colorectal cancer [40], and malignant mesothelioma [41,42]. The application of electronic noses to detect lung cancer was also proposed.…”

Breath testing as a method for detecting lung cancer

“…In all three studies, the conclusion was that the electronic nose may qualify as a non-invasive diagnostic or screening tool for lung malignancy in the future [19,20].…”