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SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,414

Re: Lung Cancer detection - just a sniff away

New Device Sniffs Out Lung Cancer 'Electronic nose' spots traces of malignancy in exhaled breath

An "electronic nose" can identify people with lung cancer by detecting distinct characteristics in their exhaled breath, researchers report.

After an initial discovery and training phase, Erzurum and his colleagues tested the device on 14 people with lung cancer and 62 people without cancer. Of the 14 cancer patients, 10 had a positive exhaled breath test and four had a negative test, providing accurate detection 66 percent of the time. Of the 62 people without cancer, 57 delivered a negative test and five had a positive test, for 92 percent accuracy.

If all goes well maybe tools of this type can help in the early detection.