Abstract
Melanoma is the most malignant type of skin cancer. Early detection of melanoma is thus critical for patient prognosis and survival. At present, examination by a skilled dermatologist followed by biopsy of suspicious lesions is the diagnostic gold standard. The aim of the present study was to examine an alternative and noninvasive method for the diagnosis of melanoma at an early stage. We identified and compared the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in mouse urine and feces, before and after a subcutaneous injection of B16 melanoma cells. We identified a total of 16 VOCs in urine and 13 VOCs in feces that could serve as potential biomarkers. Statistical analysis significantly discriminated between the cancer and control groups. These results should be validated in a larger-scale animal study, after which a study could be designed in patients to develop a melanoma biomarker.
Highlights
Detection of malignant melanoma is critical for lowering the mortality of this cancer
In mice, the possibility of diagnosing an early-melanoma tumor and following its growth by analyzing the changes that occur throughout the pathological process in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) excreted in urine and feces
We report here total of 29 potential biomarker candidates of melanoma; 25 of these are novel, and 4 have been previously reported by other research groups in relation to VOCs detected from cultures of human melanoma cells
Summary
Detection of malignant melanoma is critical for lowering the mortality of this cancer. In mice, the possibility of diagnosing an early-melanoma tumor and following its growth by analyzing the changes that occur throughout the pathological process in VOCs excreted in urine and feces. We explore the possibility of exploiting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to develop such an approach; hundreds of VOCs are emitted from the human body and usually reflect the metabolic condition of the individual. Pathological processes, such as cancer, are expected to influence the VOC fingerprint of patients either by changing the ratio between different VOCs or by producing new VOCs [3]
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