Differentiating head and neck carcinoma from lung carcinoma with an electronic nose: a proof of concept study

Abstract

Disease specific patterns of volatile organic compounds can be detected in exhaled breath using an electronic nose (e-nose). The aim of this study is to explore whether an e-nose can differentiate between head and neck, and lung carcinoma. Eighty-seven patients received an e-nose measurement before any oncologic treatment. We used PARAFAC/TUCKER3 tensor decomposition for data reduction and an artificial neural network for analysis to obtain binary results; either diagnosed as head and neck or lung carcinoma. Via a leave-one-out method, cross-validation of the data was performed. In differentiating head and neck from lung carcinoma patients, a diagnostic accuracy of 93 % was found. After cross-validation of the data, this resulted in a diagnostic accuracy of 85 %. There seems to be a potential for e-nose as a diagnostic tool in HNC and lung carcinoma. With a fair diagnostic accuracy, an e-nose can differentiate between the two tumor entities.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00405-016-4038-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Seeing the Unseen: The Role of Liquid Crystals in Gas‐Sensing Technologies

“…The prime topic of this review is the development and application of LC‐based soft systems in gas sensing, a field that has been gaining interest within the scientific community. Gas sensors represent an increasing market worth valued at USD 2.05 billion in 2018 (expecting to register a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 7.8% from 2019 to 2025 [ 34 ] ) and play a significant role in several fields such as industrial production (e.g., methane detection in mines [ 35 ] ); automotive industry (e.g., detection of polluting gases from vehicles [ 36 ] ); medical applications (e.g., clinical diagnostics [ 37 ] ); indoor air quality supervision (e.g., detection of carbon monoxide [ 38 ] ); environmental studies (e.g., greenhouse gas monitoring [ 39 ] ).…”

Detecting recurrent head and neck cancer using electronic nose technology: A feasibility study

“…VOCs have been found in feces, urine, headspace of microorganism cultures, and exhaled breath. The compounds have been associated with respiratory, urogenital, and neurological disease, as well as with malignancies of the lung, colorectal, and head and neck origin …”

“…The compounds have been associated with respiratory, 11 urogenital, 12 and neurological disease, 13 as well as with malignancies of the lung, 14,15 colorectal, 14,16 and head and neck origin. 14,[17][18][19][20] The present study used an Aeonose (The eNose Company, Zutphen, the Netherlands), a low-cost, rapid, portable, handheld, and noninvasive diagnostic tool for VOC pattern recognition in breath samples. Using this device, our group illustrated the ability of an e-nose to differentiate healthy patients from patients with primary HNSCC 18 and lung carcinoma 21 and to discriminate patients with primary HNSCC from those with bladder cancer, colon carcinoma, and lung carcinoma.…”

Training and Validating a Portable Electronic Nose for Lung Cancer Screening

“…The total measurement cycle lasted about 15 minutes, with the patient inhaling and exhaling into the device during 5 of those 15 minutes. The remaining time was used to measure any lowconcentrated VOCs inside the Tenax tube and to regenerate the sensors with clean filtered air (for details see van Hooren et al 22 ).…”