Early diagnosis of lung cancer by the electronic nose : preliminary results

Introduction Lung cancer is a major public health problem worldwide. During the years, several screening programs have been developed with the aim of detecting disease at a stage when cure and control are possible. Among the new available options for an early detection, analysis of exhaled air seems to be very promising thanks to its characteristics and stands out as a viable candidate for widespread screening. Methods Between 09/05/2013 and 30/01/2014, in the Division of Thoracic Surgery of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, we prospectively investigated the breath of 70 subjects volunteers with signed consent. This work has been funded by the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) and approved by Ethic Commission. Population consisted of 35 patients with lung cancer and 35 healthy subjects, each one older than 50 years. Measurements were performed immediately after the collection. We analyzed the breath of the recruited subjects with an electronic nose (TEN NOSE) to validate the ability of the instrument to distinguish between healthy subjects and lung cancer patients. The data were analyzed by multivariate technical analysis. Results The statistical analysis found out a positive predictive value of 79% and a negative predictive value of 76%. Furthermore the sensitivity of the electronic nose was 74% and the specificity was 80%. Conclusion These preliminary results are satisfactory and define the electronic nose as a promising tool for early diagnosis. The novelty of these researches concerns the realization of a robust model to transfer the instrument in the clinical practice. Further studies are necessary to extend the analysis to evaluate larger groups of patients.