'Electronic Nose' Could Smell Breath To Warn About Higher Risk of Cancer (theguardian.com) 12
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: An electronic device that "sniffs" breath may offer a new way to identify people with a condition that can lead to cancer of the oesophagus, researchers have revealed. According to the charity Cancer Research UK, people diagnosed with Barrett's oesophagus -- a precancerous condition in which cells lining the food pipe change and may grow abnormally -- have more than 11 times greater risk of getting a particular type of oesophageal cancer called oesophageal adenocarcinoma compared with the general population. Writing in the journal Gut, Siersema and colleagues reported how they tested their device on 402 patients who were scheduled to undergo an endoscopy. Among these patients, 129 went on to be diagnosed with Barrett's oesophagus, 141 had gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, and 132 had neither problem.
Before they underwent an endoscopy, each patient was asked to breath into an "electronic nose" -- a device that can detect different volatile molecules. In the breath, such molecules result from processes in the body, however while many of these occur in a healthy individual, some may be linked to particular diseases, either reflecting changes in cells or changes in the local community of microbes caused by a disease. As a result, a particular composition within a breath sample may act as a hallmark of a condition. The team's portable electronic nose incorporated a type of artificial intelligence to look for these patterns. [...] Overall the results reveal that the nose correctly identified patients with Barrett's oesophagus 91% of the time, while it correctly identified those without the condition 74% of the time. When the test was restricted to only those with either gastro-oesophageal reflux disease or Barrett's oesophagus, the system was still able to distinguish patients, albeit less accurately.
Before they underwent an endoscopy, each patient was asked to breath into an "electronic nose" -- a device that can detect different volatile molecules. In the breath, such molecules result from processes in the body, however while many of these occur in a healthy individual, some may be linked to particular diseases, either reflecting changes in cells or changes in the local community of microbes caused by a disease. As a result, a particular composition within a breath sample may act as a hallmark of a condition. The team's portable electronic nose incorporated a type of artificial intelligence to look for these patterns. [...] Overall the results reveal that the nose correctly identified patients with Barrett's oesophagus 91% of the time, while it correctly identified those without the condition 74% of the time. When the test was restricted to only those with either gastro-oesophageal reflux disease or Barrett's oesophagus, the system was still able to distinguish patients, albeit less accurately.
Robot nose sez: (Score:2)
"You smell like cigarettes, whiskey, and food that is demonstrably in demand because of its tastiness... why are you surprised death is here for you prematurely?
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The question is whether or not it can detect anal cancer without self-destructing.
Barrettâ(TM)s esophagus (Score:2)
Dude, the first rule of hygiene.. you don't just go sharing peopleâ(TM)s organs.
Dogs can do this (Score:2)
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Yes. After seeing those videos of that dog pressing buttons to speak english words like "out" and "play," I hope someone trains a dog to tell us what it smells with the talking buttons.
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There have been many cases where a dog doesn't have to be trained and still found the cancer - it's easier with a trained dog of course, since the family pet can be misinterpreted.
Breast and lung cancer have been detected by the pet dog a few times. It's believed the cancer emits something interesting which is why dogs end up showing unusual interest in breasts and the nose/mouth.
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Probably more accurate, too.
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Dogs don't work, because they still need the positive or negative feedback after training to maintain their training, unlike computers. And when you are smelling people, you don't know if the dog was right or wrong, so you can't give the reward correctly so the dog gets bored. If you reward incorrectly, the dog will be trained for something else than it was supposed to.
Also there are many different types of cancer, it would take a very long time to train the dog for them all. With computer, we can just add
Other Great Uses (Score:1)
That would be to retire all the bomb-sniffing dogs that are in use all over the place. The military and police EOD people could use something like that too.
Finally (Score:2)
portable, programmable, universal chemosensors (Score:1)