Optical sensory arrays for the detection of urinary bladder cancer‐related volatile organic compounds

Abstract

Non-invasive detection of urinary bladder cancer remains a significant challenge. Urinary volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a promising alternative to cell-based biomarkers. Herein, we demonstrate a novel diagnosis system based on an optic fluorescence sensor array for detecting urinary bladder cancer VOCs biomarkers. This study describes a fluorescence-based VOCs sensor array detecting system in detail. The choice of VOCs for the initial part was based on an extensive systematic search of the literature and then followed up using urinary samples from patients with urinary bladder transitional cell carcinoma. Canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was employed and correctly detected 31/48 urinary bladder cancer VOC biomarkers and achieved an overall 77.75% sensitivity and 93.25% specificity by PLS-DA modelling. All five urine samples from bladder cancer patients and five healthy controls were successfully identified with the same sensor arrays. Overall, the experiments in this study describe a real-time platform for non-invasive bladder cancer diagnosis using fluorescence-based gas-sensor arrays. Pure VOCs and urine samples from the patients proved such a system to be promising, however further research is required using a larger population sample. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Fluorometric optical sensor arrays for the detection of urinary bladder cancer specific volatile organic compounds in the urine of patients with frank hematuria: a prospective case-control study

“…Fluorescence signals of each elements of the sensory array were read by the fluorescence spectrometer, then being processed by a series of algorithms [11]: removing backscattering, normalization, de-noising, and serialization. After serialization, the data gathering from each sensory film formed a unique signal sequence.…”

“…This study shows promising results of using low-cost miniaturized fluorescence gas sensor array in distinguish between urine samples of bladder cancer patients and healthy people and distinguish between urine samples of high-grade and low-grade bladder cancer patients. Compare to our previous study [11], this study have included more urine samples and redesigned the system to accommodate the requirement for urine test, as well as improved…”

“…The system design used in this study has been previously described [11]. In brief, a dedicated designed fluorescence sensitive optical array was made by spotting eight VOC sensitive materials (porphyrins, metalloporphyrins, pH indicators and solvatochromic dyes) on the Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films.…”

“…Point-of care diagnosis, cost-effectiveness of these devices and miniaturization of technology remain major issues of translational research and to address some of these issues. To address these issues, we have developed a urinary bladder cancer VOC biomarkers detection system using novel fluorometric optical sensory arrays as reported recently [11]. Compare to other e-nose sensing technology, optical sensors have unique advantages including lower detection limits (see Table 1), higher sensitivity, easier to manufacture and maintain, therefore lower the unit cost for the final test.…”

“…In our previous study [11], we have assessed its performance in detection of four known urinary bladder cancer VOC biomarkers and preliminary classification of urine samples from 5 bladder cancer with 5 healthy controls. This study will further assess the diagnostic performance of this system in the detection of bladder cancer specific volatile organic compounds in patients presenting with frank hematuria using a case-control study design methodology.…”