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Breathalyzer That Detects Lung Cancer Early From a Single Breath Wins $100K Entrepreneurship Competition (mit.edu)

Posted by msmash on from the enthralling-news-of-the-day dept.

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.

7 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. colon cancer, you say? by jjeffries · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder if it can detect cancer with other, err, bodily gas flows...

  2. Re:Is able to detect? Cause? Prevent? by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The key word here is "early". Apparently the device can detect lung cancer early on. The earlier you know sb has cancer, the better you can treat them.

  3. The biomarker gasses are... by doug141 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...discussed at length here:
    http://www.nature.com/articles...

  4. False positives vs. false negatives by tolleyl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of the problems with such devices is that they don't report the percentage of false positives. This is a much bigger problem than false negatives, since there are more people who are negative (don't have lung cancer) than positive (have lung cancer). It's generally considered very bad to tell someone that they have cancer and then later say "Sorry, but we made a mistake." Though that's good news for them, they get upset that you told them the false bad news first. However, early diagnosis of lung cancer is an important area and if they made progress toward that then I applaud them.

    1. Re:False positives vs. false negatives by Calibax · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A false positive is much less of a problem than a false negative. One can cause some loss of sleep, the other can result in a failure to get early treatment and subsequent death.

      If a positive result if presented to the patient as an indication that they should have further tests then the level of anxiety generated by the result can be managed.

  5. Probably... by denzacar · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  6. Re:Call me when it does prostrate cancer by Calibax · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.