Lung Cancer is a result of uncontrollable cell overproduction in the lung tissues. The overproduction of cells is caused by changes to the DNA in the tissue that lines the bronchi of the lungs. If the mass production of cells continues to harm the tissue, lung cancer will eventually develop. Smoking, ionizing radiation, and viral infection are all major contributors to lung cancer. Although radon gas and viruses can both lead to lung cancer, the carcinogens in tobacco smoke make smoking the leading cause of lung cancer.
Unfortunately, in the past, lung cancer has been an incredibly hard disease to catch early on and wasn’t identified until treatment was no longer very useful. Now, researchers are beginning to discover new ways to catch the disease in its initial stages. One of these new ways is an electronic nose. Scientists at the Israel Institute of TechnolProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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y in Haifa are using gold nanoparticles to create sensors with revolutionary sensitivity that can be used to sniff out the compounds present in the breath of a lung cancer patient.
Although there have been a few other trials of similar sensors, the Israeli device has been the most successful, requiring a lower concentration of disease indicating chemicals. These chemicals are called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are organic chemical compoundProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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20that are the metabolic products present in the vapors we breathe out. Since VOCs occur in such small amounts when we exhale, researchers have tried to find ways to increase their concentrations when testing for lung cancer. But now, Dr. Hossam Haick and a few of his colleagues have invented sensors that use a range of nanoparticles that can detect the small natural concentrations of VOCs in human breath.
The other similar attempted devices depended on detecting VOCs with optical sensors, mass spectrometry, or acoustic sensors. These devices are much more expensive and less convenient. Although Haick had a few difficulties figuring out how to stick the VOCs to the gold, he got it to work and the gold nanopartical sensors are much less expensive and much more portable. Along with detecting VOCs in patients’ breath, the gold nanoparticle sensors can also detect some of the distinct signs for other diseases, like liver failure.
After testing the sensor on forty healthy patients and fifty-six lung cancer patients, he found that the device could reliably distinguish between cancerous and healthy breath. Currently, they are testing the device on a larger sample of people with different stages of the cancer and hope to be ready to begin clinical trial within the next two or three years. Meanwhile, Haick and his colleagues have also been testing the electronic nose above colonies of cells grown in culture. They discovered that while the sensor was able to detect compounds already known to breath, other lung cancer associated VOCs were not detected. So now they are working to figure out what exactly those are, which will hopefully lead to new information on lung cancer and how to treat it.
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Cancer Breathalyzer
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Sources:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23331/?nlid=2318
http://lnbd.technion.ac.il/NanoChemistry/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&TMID=139&LNGID=1&FID=502&PID=0&IID=741
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer#Causes
Dylan and Cassie
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I think this invention will be very useful, because one of the dangers of lung cancer is that it is not diagnosed until it is in a late stage, when not much can be done.
ReplyDeleteEven if this does not figure out a new treatment, it cans till catch the disease in an earlier stage, which will prove very helpful.
-Emma G.