London, Dec mber 6: A new has demonstrated for the first time
that a simple breath test could be used for colorectal cancer
screening. Cancer tissue has different metabolism compared to
normal healthy cells and produces some substances which can be
detected in the breath of these patients. Analysis of the
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) linked to cancer is a new
frontier in cancer screening. Led by Donato F. Altomare, MD, of
the Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation at the
University Aldo Moro of Bari, researchers collected exhaled
breath from 37 patients with colorectal cancer and 41 healthy
controls which was processed offline to evaluate the VOC
profile. VOCs of interest had been identified and selected, and
VOC patterns able to discriminate patients from controls set up.
A probabilistic neural network (PNN) was used to identify the
pattern of VOCs that better discriminated between the two
groups. Results showed that patients with colorectal cancer have
a different selective VOC pattern compa