Breath Test May Improve Mesothelioma Diagnosis

Mesothelioma is a fatal disease that should be treated immediately to prevent further complications. Individuals who have been exposed to asbestos should get tested to determine if they have developed mesothelioma cancer or any asbestos related disease. Researchers and scientists are striving to find effective treatment options for providing the best possible treatment for mesothelioma patients. Since mesothelioma diagnosis is very poor because symptoms closely associated with other lung illnesses and take decades to manifest. Therefore, oncologists are trying to discover diagnostics methods that make mesothelioma prognosis process easy.

Electronic Nose - An Effective and Non Invasive Way to diagnose Mesothelioma
A team of researchers from Italy and the Netherlands have tested an electronic nose for mesothelioma diagnosis by testing a patient's breath. It is effective in diagnosing malignant pleural mesothelioma in which cancer cells aggressively spread. Because some other effective diagnostic methods for mesothelioma carry a high risk of complications, especially in elderly, as they get the disease because of its long latency.

Breath Test Shows Accuracy in Mesothelioma Diagnosis
In this study, the researchers conducted an experiment on three different groups of people: people with mesothelioma, people with a long-term professional exposure to asbestos but no mesothelioma symptoms, and healthy individuals. The results were encouraging looking for easier, non invasive and more accurate diagnostic method for mesothelioma. The electronic device showed 92.3% sensitivity and 85.7% specificity in distinguishing between mesothelioma patients from those who had been exposed to asbestos. The device also showed 85% accuracy in distinguishing mesothelioma patients from the healthy controls. The researchers repeated the measurements many times and yielded the same results.
Researchers of the Department of Respiratory Diseases at the University of Bari in Italy, and the Department of Respiratory Medicine in the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, expect that electronic device that is referred as Cyranose 320 has diagnostic potential for malignant pleural mesothelioma. Researchers found that the device was approximately 80 percent accurate in determining whether a patient had mesothelioma. However, researchers continue to perform test to make sure that the results are consistent.
Prior diagnosing mesothelioma with this electronic device, the most common method for diagnosing mesothelioma is a test called a thorascopic biopsy. In this procedure a thin tube is inserted through an insertion to remove a piece of tissue. This procedure is somewhat risky because as it can cause lung collapsing, blood loss, embolism, hemorrhaging, subcutaneous emphysema and hemoptysis and other complications, especially in elderly patients.

Since, mesothelioma is caused by asbestos exposure can take decades to manifest, so by the time patient is diagnosed, the chances of recovery are reduced greatly. However, if the disease can be diagnosed earlier and more accurately, the patient can get the immediate mesothelioma treatment. According to researchers, electronic nose has diagnostic potential for mesothelioma and it is a non-invasive, safe and accurate tool for diagnosing mesothelioma, thus reducing the risks of complications in mesothelioma patients.

About The Author
Rachel Smith is a web enthusiast and professional webmaster of mesotheliomaresourceonline. She loves to write about mesothelioma research findings that help people and their loved ones suffering from mesothelioma.

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