Cancer is responsible for one in every six deaths that take place on the earth. According to the statistics from World Health Organization (WHO), one crore people passed away in the year 2020 owing to the illness. It remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with the most common types being lung, breast, colorectal, prostate, and stomach cancers. However, early detection of cancer significantly decreases the odds of fatality and makes sure the patient is cured before the deadly disease turns terminal. Scientists, meanwhile, claim to have developed a new test for blood cancers that requires just your breath.
How Breath Tests Detect Leukemia
The conventional tests for blood cancer (leukemia) are often expensive, invasive, complicated and sometimes painful. However, a new study published by the Queen Mary University of London claims that the researchers have developed a test for leukemia that is non-invasive, cheap and portable and requires just the breath. Faster, cheaper and non-invasive test options could support us in diagnosing blood cancers sooner when treatment might be more effective, and also enable us to monitor disease and response to treatment. In the period from August 2020 to March 2022, the researchers collected breath samples from 74 volunteers: 46 with newly diagnosed blood cancer and 28 healthy individuals. All the patients had acute leukemia or high-grade lymphoma and were tested before any major cancer treatment had begun.
"Prior research has demonstrated that breath tests for lung cancer work. However, no one had previously demonstrated that blood cancer cells release something that will pass into the breath, however breathing is intended for substances to move from the blood to the breath," Dr John Riches, Clinical Reader at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London.
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How The Breath Test Works
When we breathe, our breath doesn't just carry carbon dioxide, our breath also carries various organic compounds, and VOC’s (smaller particles originating from various metabolic processes within the body and also from external sources). The scientists analysed these VOCs in blood cancer patients to determine if they carried subtle hints of blood cancer. Notably, breath tests have already proven potent in diagnosing lung cancer. One important finding was that patients with high-grade lymphoma were associated with higher levels of VOCs associated with the oxidative process. This process injures the cell membrane and has a well-documented role in the development of cancer. When the fats in your cells undergo breakdown due to oxidative processes, you release specific compounds; many of which are exhaled through breath. The studies allowed researchers to compare the molecular fingerprints and observed a pattern that was different in cancer patients from healthy individuals.
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The researchers noted that additional research was now necessary to develop a reliable blood cancer breath test. The team will focus on a better understanding of the biology that governs the production of airborne molecules that we detect in the breath of patients, and which specific types of lymphoma are most reliably detected. This will support the development of more specific and sensitive tests, and the team hopes to reduce the current 10 minutes of breath collection time to just a few seconds.