Cancer Diagnoses From Exhaled Breath With Na-nose

Early diagnoses of malignant tumors are pivotal for improving their prognoses. The Exhaled Breath is made up of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, inert gases and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Theoretically, the concentration of VOCs in exhalation produced by metabolism in human body is only about nmol/L-pmol/L, which can significantly increase under certain pathological conditions. A series of studies of VOCs diagnosing solid tumors the investigators had been conducted in the past decade. It was found that VOCs in exhaled breath can not only distinguish different types of tumors, but also can make a clear distinction between different stages. Our long-term collaborator, Professor Hossam Haick (Israel Institute of Technology) has developed a nano sensor array, so called Na-nose, which can detect VOCs of the exhaled breath by binding gases to specific chemiresistors coated with gold nanomaterials. The Na-nose has the advantages of low cost, easy to use, good reproducibility and real-time detection for large scale clinical application. This study was to use large clinical samples to validate the diagnostic efficacy of the newly developed Nano-nose( Sniffphone and Breath Screener) for malignant tumors .