Early detection of cancer can dramatically improve the survival chances. to date, there is no efficient diagnostic tool for detection of lung cancer in early stages. Regarding breast cancer, the common screening tool us mammography, which suffer from low sensitivity and high false positive. Thus, there is an urgent need for developing a screening tool for early stages lung and breast cancer.
The sense of smell depends on the ability of specialized sensory cells of the nose to perceive volatile compounds (VOCs). Diseases such as infections and malignancies can be associated with changes in host metabolism, accompanied by production of different VOCs, and thus a different odor. Several studies have shown that different cancers secrete different VOCs, thus produce different smell.
We have developed a system which uses biosensors that can scent the VOCs that lung and breast cancer cell produce, thus distinguish between healthy control and lung or breast cancer. These biosensors can detect low stages lung and breast cancer.
Patients will supply urine samples and exhaled breath samples using a kit that we will supply. The samples will be shipped to our lab, where they will be processed and the VOCs will be separated from the head space of the samples. The biosensors will be exposed to the VOCs samples and will report whether the specific sample id cancerous (lung or breast) or not.
The Data will be collected from all samples and statistical analysis will be calculated, in order to test the specificity and sensitivity of our biosensors to detect cancerous samples.
