Breath analysis of cancer in the present and the future. (26th June 2019) - Einoch Amor, Reef
Most of the currently used diagnostics for cancerous diseases have yet to meet the standards of screening, as they are insufficiently accurate and/or invasive and risky. In this review, we describe the rationale, the progress made to date, and the potential of analysing the exhaled volatile organic compounds as a pathway for enabling early diagnosis of cancer and, therefore, for achieving better clinical prognosis and survival rates. The review highlights the major advancements made in this field, from fundamentals, up to translational phases and clinical trials, with a special emphasis on sensing platforms based on nanomaterials. The prospects for breath analysis in early cancerous disease are presented and discussed. Breath volatolomics is a highly promising frontier in non-/minimally invasive personalised and evidence-based cancer medicine that could be implemented for a wide variety of cancers in a noninvasive, affordable and easy-to-use manner http://bit.ly/2XeMsDb