Feasibility of electronic nose technology for discriminating between head and neck, bladder, and colon carcinomas

Abstract

Electronic nose (e-nose) technology has the potential to detect cancer at an early stage and can differentiate between cancer origins. Our objective was to compare patients who had head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with patients who had colon or bladder cancer to determine the distinctive diagnostic characteristics of the e-nose. Feasibility study An e-nose device was used to collect samples of exhaled breath from patients who had HNSCC and those who had bladder or colon cancer, after which the samples were analyzed and compared. One hundred patients with HNSCC, 40 patients with bladder cancer, and 28 patients with colon cancer exhaled through an e-nose for 5 min. An artificial neural network was used for the analysis, and double cross-validation to validate the model. In differentiating HNSCC from colon cancer, a diagnostic accuracy of 81 % was found. When comparing HNSCC with bladder cancer, the diagnostic accuracy was 84 %. A diagnostic accuracy of 84 % was found between bladder cancer and colon cancer. The e-nose technique using double cross-validation is able to discriminate between HNSCC and colon cancer and between HNSCC and bladder cancer. Furthermore, the e-nose technique can distinguish colon cancer from bladder cancer.

Pilot Study: Detection of Gastric Cancer From Exhaled Air Analyzed With an Electronic Nose in Chinese Patients

“…Breath analysis has recently emerged as a promising tool to diagnose several types of cancer and was shown to have especially high sensitivity and specificity for cancers of the head and neck and for colon carcinoma. 12 The human breath contains a complex mixture of almost 3000 different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that enter the exhaled air via the alveolar-capillary membrane of the respiratory tract. 13 These can be identified by means of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, which is a highly sensitive but costly and time-consuming technique because it requires both specialized equipment and trained personnel.…”

“… 17 e-Nose technology also has many biomedical applications that can be used in the diagnosis of colon and lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cancers of the head and neck. 12 , 18 - 20 Given the promising results of this technology in the detection of other diseases, the aim of this pilot study was to investigate whether it was possible to distinguish gastric cancer patients from healthy controls based on their exhaled breath patterns.…”

Improving clinical and epidemiological predictors of Buruli ulcer

“…This would allow the development of an «electronic-nose» that could be useful as a non-invasive diagnostic tool that can be easily used during active case-finding activities, as for other diseases [ 33 – 35 ]. In carcinoma diagnosis for example, an electronic-nose was used to differentiate head and neck carcinoma from lung carcinoma [ 36 ] and also to discriminate head and neck squamous carcinoma from colon and bladder carcinoma [ 37 ]. An electronic-nose allowed the detection of cannabis use on the human skin surface [ 38 ].…”

Innovative Diagnostic Methods for Early Prostate Cancer Detection through Urine Analysis: A Review

“…In recent years, the diagnostic usefulness of biological fluid has been revaluated. Indeed, several research studies [ 86 , 89 , 90 ] have been published regarding the investigation of biological fluid odours with the aim of identifying the presence of VOCs that are specifically related to different diseases. In the field of PCa diagnosis, some research groups proved the capability of highly trained dogs to detect alterations of body odours associated with cancer, while others tried to develop instrumental methods, proposing ENs as diagnostic tools.…”