An experimental test developed by Donato Altomare’s team at the University of Bari made it possible to determine with 76% accuracy whether or not a patient had a colorectal cancer, second leading cause of cancer death in Europe (after lung cancer).
“Our study results provide new arguments in favor of breath tests as a screening tool“, explained Professor Altomare in the British Journal of Surgery (BJS).
“The technique for taking breath samples is very simple and non-invasive“he emphasizes, even if the method is still in an” experimental phase “.
The tests developed by the researchers are based on gas chromatographic analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contained in the breath of patients.
It has been known for several years that the production of these VOCs is “altered” in cancer patients, without fully explaining the biochemical mechanisms involved.
First, Prof. Altomare’s team developed the profile of VOCs contained in the breath for colorectal cancer patients, then that of healthy patients, working with 37 patients and 41 healthy people.
She then tested the effectiveness of the test developed on 25 other patients (15 cancerous and ten healthy), obtaining a correct diagnosis for 19 of them.
An experience to be tested!
An accuracy rate of around 75% “it’s too small”, comments the French gastroenterologist Isabelle Nion-Larmurier (Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Paris). “But the sample is small and it would be necessary to see with a greater number of testss “, she adds.
But the specialist admits that this type of test would be much easier to observe in the general population than the current test, of the Hemoccult type, based on the search for blood in the stool which is always quite difficult to obtain from the over 50s. (only a third of the target population submits to it).
An interesting element of the Italian study is that the sensitivity of this test appears to be as good for cancers taken at an early stage (stages I and II) as for those in the advanced stage (stages III and IV).
Prof. Altomare’s team, who specifies that the next step will be to increase the number of patients tested to obtain a simpler and more efficient test.
