Worldwide, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death people with the most common symptoms of shortness of breath, coughing and weight loss. It is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung and if left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung.
Detection methods
A chest x-ray is usually the first test performed to evaluate lung cancer, sometimes if the chest x-ray is normal, and further tests are needed look for a suspected lung cancer. A CT scan is frequently the second step either to follow up on an abnormal chest x-ray, MRI is used to evaluate the possibility of lung cancer, a PET scan with radioactive material can be used to create colorful 3-dimensional image, Sputum cytology, bronchoscopy, fine needle aspiration, thoracentesis and a lot of other methods singly or in combination are used to detect lung cancer. Now a simple method has been developed using gold nanoparticles.
Gold nanoparticles for easy detection
Researchers at the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine have used gold nanoparticles in the development of a device for the non-traumatic, easy, cheap approach to early detection and differentiation of lung cancer. The metabolism of lung cancer patients differs from the metabolism of healthy people due to the difference in the molecules that make up cancer patients' exhaled breath. By comparing these molecular signatures to control groups, the device can detect not only if a lung is cancerous, but if the cancer is small-cell or non-small-cell, and adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma. The device was pioneered by the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Nobel-Prize-winning Technion University in Haifa, Israel.
Principle
The device distinguishes between the volatile organic compounds in cancer patients' exhaled breath compared to the breath of a control group. Subjects simply exhale into a bag, which separates superficial exhaled breath from breath that originated deeper in the lungs. And then this deep breath is analyzed by an array of gold nanoparticle sensors which immediately identify very small molecules to detect if the breath came from a cancerous lung.
It can measure the levels of volatile organic compounds against population scores to diagnose cancer and types of cancer, or can measure the change in patients' levels of VOCs across time. A breath now and a breath after treatment could define whether a patient should stay with a drug regimen or explores other options.
Applications
The device's potential uses go beyond diagnosis. This device could eventually help doctors quickly, simply, and inexpensively can distinguish between different types of lung cancer cells, define patients' lung cancer subtypes, specify correct therapies with subtypes early in the treatment process and more precisely target the disease. The device may also help doctors smooth the wrinkles in existing methods of cancer screening and measure to distinguish what are a benign nodule and a malignant nodule.