Cancer and a Ray of Hope – New Olfactory Sniffing Device

It’s not often that you hear the words cancer and ray of hope spoken in the same breath, but thanks to a bunch of Israeli scientists, we’re a step closer to diagnosing this disease at an early stage. The only cancer patients who survive for a year or more are those who are lucky enough to discover the presence of cancerous tissue early on. They are the ones who respond to treatment, and they are the ones who live to tell the tale.

There are some forms of cancer that are devils in disguise – they evade detection even when the proper scanning methods are used and come to light only when it’s too late to do anything to save the patient’s life. I lost an uncle to cancer a few months ago – colorectal cancer took his dignity, his health, and finally his life. The question we all asked ourselves – why couldn’t we detect this horrible disease earlier, in time to save his life?

The new olfactory device (or a nose in plain English) is modeled on the nose of the canine species and is capable of detecting cancer in the early stages by sniffing the breath of patients. Cancer tumors emanate molecules that circulate through our blood to the lungs and leave the body when we breathe out - the electronic nose is capable of detecting the presence of this molecule and so is able to detect the presence of cancerous tissue that is at an early stage of development.

Clinical trials were carried out on 100 patients, some of whom had cancer and others who didn’t. The results showed that the electronic olfactory device was able to not only identify the presence of cancer cells, but also to pinpoint the location and nature of the tumor with an accuracy of 92 percent.

While the research is in its early stages, the news comes as a ray of hope for the millions of people who live in dread of succumbing to this dreaded disease. It’s also a breakthrough in testing – it’s not invasive and it takes very little time as opposed to a scan or fluid test.

Only time will tell if this device will actually be able to save lives that could otherwise be lost to cancer; but for now, it’s news that’s as welcome as the first sign of spring after a harsh winter!

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