Ground-Breaking Lung Cancer Breath Test in Clinical Trial

News Brief by Catherine Donlon

Researchers at the University of Leicester and at the hospitals in Leicester have been working with Cambridge-based Owlstone Nanotech Ltd. to develop a new device to detect lung cancer at earlier stages.  Currently lung cancer affects hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone every year. It holds a position in the lowest five-year survival rates of all cancers, and has a poor general prognosis due to the fact that doctors are unable to detect it until its more advanced stages. Currently doctors diagnosis lung cancer using expensive methods such as chest X-rays, CT scans and bronchoscopy. However this new Lung Cancer Indicator Detection program uses a breath test to provide a cheaper, smaller, and non-invasive method of diagnosing lung cancer in a General Practitioner’s office. It works by measuring the volatile organic compounds on a patient’s breath. This device is now in clinical trials at Glenfield Hospital and its results are expected by early 2016. These efforts and this test could allow for earlier detection of lung cancer, leading to more effective treatment.This would raise the rate for early detection of lung cancer from 14.5% to 25% and could ultimately save over 10,000 lives.

University of Leicester. "Ground-breaking lung cancer breath test in clinical trial." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 February 2015. .