Hopes raised of a breath test to sniff out most common cancers

Published on Tuesday 10 August 2010 18:05

A BREATH test could one day be used to detect four of the most common types of cancer, according to scientists.

• A cheap portable 'electronic nose' like breathalyser could help detect cancers at an early stage. Picture: PA

Researchers have developed sensors that can spot chemical signs of lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancer in a person's breath.

They believe further work could lead to a cheap, portable "electronic nose" that can help doctors diagnose cancer at an early stage.

Yesterday, experts said such a development would be welcome, but warned a cancer breath test was still some way from becoming a reality. They also cautioned that measures would have to be taken to stop surgeries being inundated with the "worried well" demanding the test.

The scientists carried out tests on 177 volunteers including healthy participants and patients with different cancers.

They showed it was possible to use sensors to detect chemicals emitted from tumour cells that appear in the breath.

Professor Abraham Kuten, from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, said: "This study shows that an 'electronic nose' can distinguish between healthy and malignant breath, and can also differentiate between the breath of patients with different cancer types.

"If we can confirm these initial results in large-scale studies, this new technology could become a simple tool for early diagnosis of cancer along with imaging."

Dr Lesley Walker, from the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "It is important to say at the outset that this is a small study at a very early stage and much more research is needed to see if breath can be used in the detection of cancer.

"These results are interesting and show that there is the potential to develop a single breath test to detect these cancers.

"Strengthening the methods for early diagnosis of cancer as well as improved treatments will have a significant impact on cutting death rates."

Dr Mark Matfield, from the St Andrews-based Association for International Cancer Research, said previous studies showed that the approach may have potential in the future, but added that developments could take some time.

"There have been many attempts to detect cancer from odours - even including the use of trained sniffer dogs," he said.

"This is clearly a challenging problem, because so far none of the attempts have worked reliably enough to be usable for diagnosis. However, it is thought that this 'electronic nose' approach is the one most likely to bear fruit."

Ian Beaumont, from Bowel Cancer UK, said they welcomed any test that would encourage people to be proactive about cancer. "In the UK, statistics show that we lag far behind Europe in people acting on symptoms and concerns."