Electronic nose sniffs out diseases on a patient's breath

An electronic device developed by Israeli researchers, called the NaNose, aims to diagnose a range of diseases by simply "smelling" a patient's breath.

The NaNose reasearchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology said their system can differentiate between 17 types of unrelated diseases, including cancers and Parkinson's.

"When a disease starts to evolve in the human body it starts to emit some compounds which we call volatile molecules, namely molecules which have an ability to be volatile in the blood," explained Professor Hossam Haick from the Technion's Department of Chemical Engineering, who led the international research team. "Once they are in the blood, these molecules are very tiny and very vaporised, so they can just diffuse into the blood and they can exist either throughout the exhaled breath or you can find them in the urine or faeces or you can detect them in the skin."

He added: "Indeed, what we have found in our most recent research in this regard, that 17 types of disease have 13 common compounds that are found in all different types of disease, but the mixture of the compounds and the composition of these compounds changes from one disease to another disease. And this is what really unique and what really we expect to see and utilise in order to make the diagnosis from exhaled breath."

The technology recently passed a clinical study, which Haick labelled "the biggest and most comprehensive study ever done in the field", in which the NaNose made successful diagnoses 86 percent of the time among 1,404 subjects, the team said.

The 17 diseases included in the study were: lung cancer, colorectal cancer, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer, stomach cancer, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, two types of Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, pulmonary hypertension, pre-eclampsia and chronic kidney disease.

The NaNose uses "artificially intelligent nanoarray" sensors to analyse the data obtained from receptors that "smell" the patient's exhalation, the team said.

"Our main idea is to try and imitate what's going on in nature. We can take a dog and train it to scent the smell of drugs, of explosives or a missing person, we are trying to do it artificially. And we can do that by using these nano-materials and we build these nano material-based sensors. There are many advantages and one of them is going all the way from large sensors to really small devices that have on them eight sensors and which can be incorporated to systems like this, or even smaller," said Dr. Yoav Broza, a senior researcher in the team.

Haick said several companies have purchased a license to use this technology and attempt to commercialise it.

He predicted that a NaNose test price could range between $4 USD to $15 USD and voiced the hope that the non-invasive, affordable and painless device could be used on a broader scale in health care systems in future years.

Future plans for the NaNose include incorporating it into smartphones, thus enabling everyday access. He said a smartphone operating prototype was expected in approximately two years. — Reuters