Study into Use of Breath Analysis to Monitor Lung Cancer Therapy Enhances Clinical Laboratories’ Ability to Support Precision Medicine
A recent study adds to the growing body of research into breath analysis as a diagnostic and treatment-monitoring tool
More progress is being made on the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. The newest developments will be of interest to anatomic pathologists who work with lung specimens. A new study suggests it is possible to use breath specimens to monitor the progress of lung cancer patients undergoing therapy.
The study was conducted by Inbar Nardi-Agmon, MD, Thoracic Cancer Research and Detection Center at Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel, and colleagues, and was published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO). The study investigated the use of breath analysis to monitor lung cancer therapy.
The authors of the study took 143 exhaled breath samples from 39 patients who were undergoing treatment for advanced lung cancer. They used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis to identify three different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that indicate partial response (PR) or stable disease. One of those compounds discriminated between PR/stable disease and progressive disease. (more…)
