Breath Test Identifies Lung Cancer at Early Stage
As reported at the recent 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, exhaled breath might be able to indicate a patient’s risk of lung cancer.
Molecular messages and signals circulating in blood or contained in cells lining the airway can identify early stage cancer.
Using DNA recovered from exhaled breath, researchers can examine the state of cells that line the lungs, and potentially detect cancer at an early stage, when treatment may be most successful.
The research was conducted by researchers from the New York State Department of Health.
In previous studies, exhaled breaths have been used to detect small volatile molecules that could indicate both non-malignant and malignant lung diseases.
Large molecule DNA which are methylated or tagged by a molecular “methyl” fragment were recovered in small amounts and analyzed the detailed methylation patterns of six tumor suppressor gene promoters (regions of DNA that serve as regulators of gene transcription).
These promoter regions, when methylated, the cell can no longer activate its tumor suppressor genes.
Lung cancer when detected early has the highest chance of being treated.
Findings in this study represent a considerable advance in the early detection of lung cancer.
Find more details from the full report.
Tags: breath-test, lung-cancer, lung-cancer-detection, methylated-DNA-moleculeRelated Stories
POSTED IN: on cancer diagnostics, on lung cancer
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