New cancer biomarkers discovered in breath using 2D GC and TOF MS
Imperial College London, UK
Professor
George Hanna from Imperial College London, UK, identified several predictive
biomarkers for oesophago-gastric and colorectal cancers using GC×GC with
BenchTOF MS
.
Novel predictive biomarkers for cancer have
been identified in breath by researchers at Imperial College London (ICL), UK,
using two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry.
The technique enabled them to detect compounds they had not previously seen in
breath samples.
- Customer: Imperial College London, UK
- Application: Breath sample analysis
- Challenge: To improve the discovery of breath biomarkers to
provide new triage procedures
- Solution: Setting up a system consisting of a thermal desorber
with flow-modulated GC×GC and time-of-flight mass spectrometer
- Results: Identification of trace VOCs in breath enabling
discovery of novel biomarkers
Featured on the British TV news:
Breath test to detect oesophageal cancer could be a breakthrough for testing other cancers
Prof. George Hanna was interviewed about his team’s discovery on British TV’s Channel 4 news programme.
The news programme outlined the work in this case study, showing how patients’ breath is sampled and then analysed for VOCs (indicative cancer biomarkers), by TD–GC×GC–TOF MS.
Prof Hanna said: “This system will address the balance of testing people with non-specific symptoms. If [the test] is positive, we refer for camera and endoscopy examination, and if it’s negative, the patient is referred for [appropriate] treatment and we test again if the symptoms persist.”