Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer among men and women and causes the most cancer-related deaths (second most common for women). Overall, a small percentage of lung cancer patients survive more than five years after their diagnosis. With this in mind, it is of great importance to find a way to detect lung cancer in as early a stage as possible. Micronit joined the LCAOS (Lung Cancer Artificial Olfactory System) project to contribute to this cause.
The LCAOS project
Together with a team of specialists from different fields, Micronit worked on the development of an electronic nose to detect volatile biomarkers that are indicative of early stage lung cancer in the breath of patients. Within the LCAOS project novel diagnostic tools were developed to:
- detect the presence of lung cancer;
- calculate the risk of a patient developing lung cancer in the future.
Conventional diagnostic tests were considered unsuitable for widespread screening because they were costly, occasionally missed tumors, were not time-efficient, nor free of complications. The electronic nose would overcome these problems by using an approach based on the detection of volatile biomarkers emitted from the lung tissue into the exhaled breath using state of the art sensor technology.