Abstract
Early and reliable diagnostic test is essential for effective therapy of lung cancer. Volatile organic compounds that are characteristic for cancer could serve as valuable biomarkers in cancer diagnosis. Both trace analytical and detection dog approaches give some evidence for the existence of such biomarkers. In this proof of concept, study dogs and trace analysis were implemented in combination to gain more information concerning cancer biomarkers. Two dogs were trained to distinguish between absorbed breath samples of lung cancer patients and healthy persons and succeeded with correct identification of patients with 9/9 and 8/9 and correct negative indications from of 8/10 and 4/10 samples from healthy individuals. A recent observational study found that breath samples from lung cancer patients showed an increase in 1-butanol, 2-butanone, 2-pentanone, and hexanal. Synthetic air samples were therefore fortified with these compounds and adsorbed to a fleece. Tested against breath samples from healthy probands, on presentation to the dogs these synthetic samples provoked an indication in three out of four samples. We were able to demonstrate that a combination of the natural nose of a dog and a trace analytic technique can be a valuable concept in the search for cancer biomarkers.
Highlights
Lung cancer is one of the most frequent cancer forms in Europe
Some studies reported promising sensitivities (71–99%) and specificities (78–98%) [5,6,7,8], other studies described discouraging test characteristics and discussed this approach more critically [4, 9,10,11,12]. These controversial results led to the question whether there are specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are characteristic for a certain type of cancer cell or for metabolic processes in patients suffering from cancer
Two dogs were successfully trained to distinguish between breath samples from cancer patients and healthy controls
Summary
Lung cancer is one of the most frequent cancer forms in Europe. In 2012, it was the leading type of cancer for males and the third most frequent type for females, causing 353.000 deaths in the 745 billion Europeans [1]. Some studies reported promising sensitivities (71–99%) and specificities (78–98%) [5,6,7,8], other studies described discouraging test characteristics (sensitivities: 3–71% and specificities: 8–53%) and discussed this approach more critically [4, 9,10,11,12]. These controversial results led to the question whether there are specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are characteristic for a certain type of cancer cell or for metabolic processes in patients suffering from cancer
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