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Breathomics: May it Become an Affordable, New Tool for Early Diagnosis and Screening of Lung Cancer?

Breathomics: May it Become an Affordable, New Tool for Early Diagnosis and Screening of Lung Cancer? An Exploratory Study on a Cohort of 60 Patients

Status
Completed
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Observational
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT06034730
Enrollment
60
Registered
2023-09-13
Start date
2021-04-01
Completion date
2023-08-01
Last updated
2023-09-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Lung Cancer

Keywords

breathomic, NSCLC, screening, volatile organic compounds

Brief summary

Breath analysis examining specific patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been demonstrated to be able to discriminate lung cancer (LC) patients from healthy controls (HC). However, the existing technology uses complex, expensive, and low throughput analytical platforms to give an offline response, thus preventing its applicability for mass screening. The reliability of a new portable device to enable rapid, on-site LC diagnosis is tested.

Detailed description

The breath of patients with histologically proven NSCLC and healthy controls was sampled into Tedlar bags through a Nafion filter and a one-way mouthpiece. The breath samples in the bags were then analyzed by an automated micro portable gas chromatography device developed in-house, which consisted of a thermal desorption tube, thermal injector, separation column, and photoionization detector, as well as other accessories such as pumps, valves, and a helium cartridge. The chromatograms were analyzed by chemometrics and machine learning techniques.

Interventions

DEVICEPortable GC device for brath analysis

Patients were asked to orally exhale 1-2 L breath into a 5 L Tedlar bag via a one-way mouthpiece and Nafion filter for moisture removal, as shown in Figure 1B. The process usually takes about a few minutes. The breath analysis took place either in-situ immediately after the breath sample collection or within 24 h of breath collection. The Tedlar bags were stored under ambient condition until analyzed. During the breath analysis, the Tedlar bag was connected to the sampling port of the portable GC (Figure 1C). Approximately 350 mL of breath was pulled from the Tedlar bag into the GC for analysis. The GC operation was controlled using LabView via a laptop. The total assay time was 30 min, including 5 min of breath sampling time from the Tedlar bag at a flow rate of 70 mL/min (see the blue path in Figure 1A), 5 min of desorption/transfer time, 10 min of chromatographic separation time (see the orange path in Figure 1A), and 10 min of GC system cleaning time.

Sponsors

University of Michigan
CollaboratorOTHER
Humanitas Hospital, Italy
CollaboratorOTHER
Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Consorziale Policlinico di Bari
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

* NSCLC histologically proven (for LC group) at any stage of disease * non-cancer controls who had negative findings on preoperative chest X-rays/chest CT scan (for HC groups)

Exclusion criteria

* Patients who had any history of another type of cancer * who had received neoadjuvant chemo/radiotherapy because of the possible unknown effects on cancer metabolism * pediatric patients.

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Changes in VOCs peaks in patients with lung cancer vs healthy patients24 hoursIdentify biomarkers able to discriminate between lung cancer patients and healthy controls.

Countries

Italy

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 5, 2026