The metabolism of lung cancer patients is different than the metabolism of healthy people. And so the molecules that make up cancer patients’ exhaled breath are different too. A new device pioneered at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Nobel-Prize-winning Technion University in Haifa, Israel uses gold nanoparticles to trap and define these molecules in exhaled breath. By comparing these molecular signatures to control groups, the device can tell not only if a lung is cancerous, but if the cancer is small-cell or non-small-cell, and adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma.

“This could totally revolutionize lung cancer screening and diagnosis,” says Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and professor of medical oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “The perspective here is the development of a non-traumatic, easy, cheap approach to early detection and differentiation of lung cancer.”

The proof of concept, recently published in the journal Nanomedicine, showed that in a preliminary study the device clearly distinguished 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.