Artificial noses have orbited the Earth in spacecraft, inhaled in doctors’ offices, and sniffed in food-processing plants, all in an effort to surpass the sensitivity and specificity of the mammalian olfactory organ. Sure, dogs have been known to smell a cancer, but can they tell you what kind it is, too? Hossam Haick, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has developed a device that can do just that. By collecting a breath sample from patients, Haick’s electronic nose can determine whether that person has lung cancer, as opposed to breast, prostate, or head and neck tumors, and even whether it’s non-small cell or small cell lung cancer.
Cancer patients emit a suite of volatile organic compounds in their breath that is different from the composition of healthy patients’ breath—and that differs from cancer to cancer. “If we develop an artificial nose which can detect very tiny amounts—at the ...
