A Breathalyzer to Detect Lung Cancer
To detect lung problems in the past, doctors would sniff the breath of patients, looking for a sweet smell indicative of diabetes, or a yeasty note characteristic of tuberculosis. And, as funny as it sounds, it sounds like they may have been on to something back then. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have built a prototype breathalyzer that may radically change the way that doctors detect lung cancer.
Scientists have known for some time that cancer cells make distinctive metabolic products (volatile organic compounds), which are exhaled. Differences between the breathe of a healthy person and one with cancer can be detected using a complicated process of gas chromatography and mass spectometry.
Leave it to the world-reknowned researchers at the Cleveland Clinic to find a cheaper and more efficient way of detecting lung cancers in your breath. Peter Mazzone, a pulmonologist at Cleveland Clinic, has developed a disposable piece of paper with 36 chemically sensitive dye spots that change color when exposed to a patients breath. Next, a computer scans the dots, looking for tell-tale color signatures.
Mazzone conducted tests on 143 people, some with cancer, and others without. And after using his new colored dot breathalyzer test, they found a color signature characteristic of 3 out of 4 patients with lung cancer. This is exciting news, and now the researchers are working on fine tuning the accuracy of the test by trying to identify the compounds exhaled by lung patients.
Lung cancer kills 160,000 people in the US each year alone, and if there's a better way to detect it, so that it can be caught and treated early, that's great news for all of us.
Post new comment