Cancer detection will become much easier with the advent of a new invention and far cheaper by a blow bag analyzer. It got recently disclosed by a team of researchers led by Dr. Roger Yazbek at the Flinders School of Medicine Breath Analysis Research Laboratory of Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Via
The researchers are improving a “blow in the bag” breath test for cancer. They hope the comparatively low-cost, non-invasive and fast tests will ultimately be comparable to breast screening tests, providing an early indication of people who have to seek an additional examination.
Dr. Roger Yazbek is heading the innovative plan. He noted that most of the individuals think discharged exhale has just carbon dioxide, but he stated it could provide information on a variety of cancers and other diseases .“With higher than 2000 compounds in a single individual exhale, there is the abundance of data regarding the state of our well-being,” he added. “We are creating a complete breath analysis plan which covers a range of elements incorporating cancers, and the conclusions. The results so far are very promising. The focus is on cancer, and we are working on gastrointestinal condition of food pipe and the stomach.
The research project is still in trial stage and goes in clinical trials soon. The range of biomarkers for cancer is getting collected from patients. On completion of this data validation, tests would be conducted, all expected within five years.
In the actual tests, a person is given a liquid that reacts with enzyme unique to cancer, that gets matched with exhale breath indicating the resulting biomarker. Other than cancers, the more diseases tests would also get carried out. Dr. Yazbek noted an early warning test would save lives.
“For oesophageal cancer, you would mark those most at danger due to age and lifestyle. It is much like breast screening, and if there were concrete results you would transfer them for additional conventional tests,” he said. “A quick, simple and non-invasive tool would help to get better clinical supervision, bypassing repeated and expensive invasive tissue examination that also significantly affects sufferers’ condition of life.”
A proof-of-concept paper, In Vitro Development and Validation of a Non-Invasive 13C-Stable Isotope Assay for Ornithine Decarboxylase (ODC), was recently published in the Journal of Breath Research, describing how ODC in human breath can get used as a potential prognostic marker for oesophagal cancer. Via
