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Breathalyzer That Detects Lung Cancer Early From a Single Breath Wins $100K Entrepreneurship Competition (mit.edu)
Lung cancer "breathalyzer," developed by a team of MIT and Harvard University students, has won $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The breathalyzer connects to a smartphone and is able to detect lung cancer early from a single breath, reports MIT News. From the report: Astraeus Technologies has developed a postage-stamp-sized device, called the L CARD, that detects certain gases indicative of lung cancer. When someone blows onto the device, a connected mobile app turns a smartphone screen red if those gases are present and green if they aren't. "The L CARD reacts and sends instantaneous information to the physician that further attention is required," Joseph Azzarelli, an MIT PhD student in chemistry said while a ripple of excitement spread through the crowd. Lung cancer is the deadliest type of cancer in the United States, causing more deaths than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined, according to the World Health Organization.
...discussed at length here:
http://www.nature.com/articles...
If I understand correctly what I'm reading about the biomarker gasses, it's not just the absence or presence of a gas or gasses, but the quantities, and the profile of those quantities in normal vs. diseased lungs. So, they're hooking it up to a pattern classifier. In the prototype stage you need a computer with a fair amount of power --- fortunately these days a smart phone will do. Down the road I imagine they could hook it up to a FPGA or six and eventually engineer it down to one chip, but that's a lot more engineering and likely years down the road.
Finding God in a Dog
Actually... since the tech behind it is based on these sensors and since dogs can already be trained to detect bacteria and prostate cancer by smell, while bladder cancer can be detected by smell as well...
The answer is probably yes.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I had a colonoscopy when I turned 50. It discovered a stage 3 adenocarcinoma in the ascending colon. Without a colonoscopy these are generally not found until the colon is blocked or it ruptures - either way the cancer has usually metastasized by this point and the live expectancy is of the order of 18 months to two years.
The day after the colonoscopy a cat scan confirmed the result (not that there was a doubt) and a week later the tumor was removed. The surgery was followed by 6 months of chemotherapy. That was 12 years ago.
A colonoscopy saved my life. It might save yours also. Man up and get it taken care of.
Cigarettes are not the only cause of lung cancer. Lung cancer existed before cigarettes, and will exist even if we ban them. Offhand I can think of a half dozen celebrities and people I know who never smoked but died of lung cancer.
Anything that can damage your DNA can cause cancer - radiation, various kinds of chemicals, viruses, or just errors in replication. All these things can cause cancer in the lungs. While it's true tobacco drastically increases your odds of lung cancer, you still have about a 14/1000 chance of developing lung cancer even if you've never smoked a cigarette and aren't exposed to statistically significant amounts of secondhand smoke, i.e. you don't live with a smoker or tend bar at a smoke-filled pub.
So yes, you need early detection.