How breathalyser could revolutionise cancer diagnosis

A breathalyser test that could save thousands of lives by making cancer diagnosis simpler and cheaper is undergoing clinical trials in the UK.

The Breath Biopsy device is designed to pick up early signs of cancers that enter the breath and become airborne, The Guardian reports. Experts say it could save millions of pounds in healthcare costs, by dramatically reducing the need for biopsies.

A total of 1,500 people, including healthy individuals as well as cancer patients, have been recruited for a two-year trial of the breathalyser at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

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Participants will be asked to breathe into the device for ten minutes to capture airborne molecules called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which will then be sent to a nearby laboratory for analysis.

As part of their normal metabolic processes, cells in the body produce a range of VOCs, which find their way into the lungs and emerge in the breath, The Independent reports. Scientists believe cancer may cause recognisable alterations in the pattern of VOCs, aiding in the early detection of the disease.

Only patients with suspected oesophageal and stomach cancers will take part in the trial initially, but the programme will later be expanded to include kidney, prostate, bladder, liver and pancreatic cancers.

Lead investigator Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre (CRUK), said: “We urgently need to develop new tools, like this breath test, which could help to detect and diagnose cancer earlier, giving patients the best chance of surviving their disease.

“Through this clinical trial we hope to find signatures in breath needed to detect cancers earlier. It’s the crucial next step in developing this technology.”

Billy Boyle, co-founder and chief executive of Owlstone Medical, which invented the device, said: “There is increasing potential for breath-based tests to aid diagnosis, sitting alongside blood and urine tests in an effort to help doctors detect and treat disease.

“The concept of providing a whole-body snapshot in a completely non-invasive way is very powerful and could reduce harm by sparing patients from more invasive tests that they don’t need.

“Our technology has proved to be extremely effective at detecting VOCs in the breath, and we are proud to be working with Cancer Research UK as we look to apply it towards the incredibly important area of detecting early-stage disease in a range of cancers in patients.”