Cancer Biomarkers in the Breath

Linus Pauling not only won two Nobel prizes, he opened up a new field of research when he reported the first microanalysis of human breath 50 years ago. Using the then-new technology of gas chromatography, he discovered that concentrated human breath contains a multitude of different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in low concentrations (ppb). We now know that a single sample of breath contains more than 2,000 different VOCs, and these VOCs contain biomarkers of several diseases including lung cancer, breast cancer, radiation exposure, and infections such as tuberculosis and influenza. Breath VOC analysis is technically difficult: the sample must be collected without background contamination, and then analyzed with high sensitivity and resolution using advanced separation methods. Every clinical research study generates a torrent of data that require sophisticated informatics management, and the database must then be mined for concealed signals of disease, a task that resembles searching for a few grains of gold in a mountain of rubble. Investigators at Menssana Research have developed methods for collecting breath samples to rapidly analyze breath VOCs. Our clinical research studies have shown that many diseases appear to have their own unique “fingerprint” of breath VOCs, including biomarker VOCs that are downstream metabolic products of oxidative stress. In clinical research studies, breath biomarkers identified breast cancer and lung cancer, and predicted abnormal cancer imaging with a mammogram and a chest CT.

 

 

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.