Gastric Cancer Detected in a Breath Test

By detecting certain volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath, NanoArtificial Nose technology (NA-NOSE) was able to differentiate patients with gastric cancer from those with benign lesions, with high accuracy, in a poster that earned a merit award at Digestive Disease Week 2014, the largest gathering of gastroenterology specialists in the world.1

“The detection of volatile markers in human breath is an emerging field of research for screening, surveillance, and monitoring different diseases, including cancer,” said Marcis Leja, MD, MBA, PhD, of the University of Latvia in Riga. The study’s first author was Haitham Amal, a PhD candidate in the research group led by Hossam Haick, BSc, PhD, at Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa.