Breath test predicts stomach cancer - research

Israeli researchers are working on technology that could be used to check patients' risk of stomach cancer. Photo / 123RF

A breath test which can predict the chance of developing stomach cancer has been developed by Israeli scientists in the hope that it could save thousands of lives.

Currently symptoms of stomach cancer are often mistaken for other complaints and there is no effective early screening test, so it is usually diagnosed when it is too late for treatment to be effective.

But a new test developed by Israeli scientists senses tiny changes in the level of organic compounds in exhaled breath which signal that stomach cancer is present.

Researchers suggest that the technology could be used to check patients' risk of stomach cancer, and if it is deemed high they could then be tested with a conventional endoscopy.

A trial involving thousands of patients, including those with stomach cancer or pre-cancerous symptoms, is under way in Europe to test the technology's suitability as a screening method. "The attraction of this test lies in its non-invasiveness, ease of use, rapid predictiveness, and potentially low cost," said Prof Hossam Haick, of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute in Haifa, Israel. To develop the test, researchers analysed breath samples from more than 400 volunteers who had already been diagnosed with cancer or pre-cancerous cells.

They discovered that eight organic compounds in the exhaled breath different significantly between the groups. Researchers said it showed that both those with cancer and those without the disease had distinctive "breath prints".

The test was also able to distinguish between the different pre-cancerous stages, marking out those patients at low and high-risk of going on to develop stomach cancer.

Being able to differentiate between low and high-risk changes would avoid unnecessary endoscopies and enable any progression to cancer or signs of disease recurrence to be monitored, the scientists suggest.

Around 7,300 people are diagnosed with stomach cancer in Britain each year. The research was published in the journal Gut.