Preventive screening of colorectal cancer with a device based on chemoresistive sensors

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is one of the widely diffused tumors. Despite its high curable rate, if diagnosed in its polyp state, an efficient screening method is highly desirable for preventing and decreasing deaths. Tumor biomarkers, emitted by the peroxidation of the cell membrane, may alter the composition of feces. We developed an array of chemoresistive sensors (both metal oxides and sulfides) capable of distinguishing between real stool samples of healthy subjects and of patients with colorectal cancer at diverse degeneration stages. Preliminary clinical validation of real samples was carried out. Results have shown the selectivity of the sensor array towards tumor affected and healthy subject samples. A quadratic discriminant analysis was performed, with a classification error of about 5%.