Lung cancer can be sniffed

Important step in the early detection of lung cancer: Specially trained laboratory mice can get a taste of lung cancer. Early lung cancer can soon be assessed by urine test?

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers. Every year around 1.3 million people worldwide die of bronchial carcinoma. The bad thing about lung cancer is that the disease is usually discovered too late and then treatment is hardly possible anymore. There are no early signs that make lung cancer recognizable. For this reason, scientists are investigating how medicine, with simple diagnostic means, could detect bronchial carcinoma at an early stage.

Scientists at the Monell Science Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have now determined in a series of experiments that specially trained laboratory mice are capable of detecting lung cancer. „It is known that cancer in the body leads to changes that show in the smell of body fluids“, says Gary K. Beachamp, a biologist at the Monell Center. There have been some reports that there are certain odor changes in cancer.

In the experiment, laboratory mice were trained to sniff urine from other mice infected with bronchial carcinoma. The result was that the mice were able to differentiate the diseased from the healthy mice due to the different odor. In the following experiments, the US scientists analyzed the urine of the diseased mice and compared this with that of healthy ones. It was noticeable that certain "biomarkers" in the urine of the diseased mice occurred in smaller quantities than in healthy urine. The scientists were able to identify 47 mice from the 50 lung-affected mice using the biomarkers.

The purpose of the experiment was to develop a urine test for the early detection of lung cancer. Based on the study, the scientists came very close to this step. But it will take some time until the implementation. (sb, 27.01.2010)