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Breath analysis test shows strong accuracy for detecting esophagogastric cancer
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A breath analysis test showed good sensitivity and specificity in detecting early-stage esophagogastric cancer, according to researchers in the U.K.
“Current U.K. referral guidelines for suspected esophagogastric cancer focus on alarm symptoms such as dysphagia and odynophagia, despite these symptoms having poor sensitivity and specificity for esophagogastric cancer and often only occur in advanced disease translating into a poor outcome and OS,” Sheraz R. Markar, PhD, of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London, and colleagues wrote.
“Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from the human body have been of interest to researchers for several decades, with associations previously suggested between specific volatile organic compounds and breath and lung, bladder and breast cancers,” Markar and colleagues added.
Researchers collected breath samples from 335 patients at three London hospitals (n = 172 in control group, n = 163 with esophagogastric cancer). The researchers then performed selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry analysis on the samples.
Researchers sampled the air in hospital rooms, trained researchers in breath sampling, calibrated instruments regularly and conducted unambiguous VOC identification to ensure the quality of the breath samples.
Researchers used a previously generated 5-VOCs model to determine the risk for cancer based on the air samples compared with proven diagnoses.
The group with proven cancer was older than those in the control group (median age, 68 years vs. 55 years) and had a larger proportion of men (82.2% vs. 47.4%).
Most patients in the diagnosed group had a tumor stage of T3 or T4 (n = 123; 69%), and most had nodal metastasis (n = 106; 65%).
Using the predictive probabilities generated by the diagnostic model, the researchers generated a receiver operator characteristic curve, with an area under the curve of 0.85 (standard deviation, 0.02).
The breath analysis test demonstrated a sensitivity of 80%, and a specificity of 81%.
“The next stage is a large-scale diagnostic accuracy study among the primary care population where the test is intended to be employed,” the researchers wrote. – by Andy Polhamus
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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