Perioperative breathomics testing for identification of lung cancer breath biomarkers

Breathomics testing has been considered a promising method for detection and screening for lung cancer. However, studies haved shown heterogeneous results because of differences in sample collection, patient condition, test environment, and analysis methods. A discovery study at Peking University People’s Hospital (Beijing, China) compared breathomics of lung cancer patients before versus 4 weeks after surgery. There were significant differences for 28 volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The validation phase tested a panel of 16 of these VOCs for discrimination between lung cancer patients and healthy individuals. The diagnostic model had an AUC of 0.952, sensitivity of 89.2%, specificity of 89.1%, and accuracy of 89.1%. The authors conclude that perioperative dynamic breathomics is an effective approach for identifying lung cancer breath biomarkers.