Chan Hiang Ping, Lewis Craig, Thomas Paul S
Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, NSW 2031, Australia.
Lung Cancer. 2009 Feb;63(2):164-8. doi: 10.1016/j.lungcan.2008.05.020. Epub 2008 Jul 2.
Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer death, with the prognosis adversely affected by late diagnosis. Early diagnosis of lung cancer is desirable, but current evidence does not support the application of screening with techniques such as chest radiography, sputum cytology or computed tomography. Breath analysis, which includes gaseous phase analysis that measures volatile organic compounds using electronic noses, exhaled nitric oxide, and exhaled breath condensate (EBC), has been proposed as a non-invasive and simple technique to investigate neoplastic processes in the airways. EBC can be easily collected by breathing into a cooling system that condenses the water vapour in the breath. EBC has already been demonstrated to be useful in investigating inflammatory and oxidative stress changes in various respiratory conditions as it contains measurable mediators of airway inflammation and oxidative stress markers. Furthermore, EBC has also been shown to be a useful method to monitor severity of diseases such as asthma and to act as a surrogate measure of compliance to medical therapy. Presently, there still remains a relative paucity of lung cancer research involving EBC. However, since EBC is a simple, non-invasive technique that can be easily performed, even in ill patients, it has the potential to be validated for use in screening for the early diagnosis of lung cancer.
肺癌是癌症死亡的主要原因之一，晚期诊断会对其预后产生不利影响。肺癌的早期诊断是理想的，但目前的证据并不支持采用胸部X线摄影、痰细胞学检查或计算机断层扫描等技术进行筛查。呼吸分析，包括使用电子鼻测量挥发性有机化合物的气相分析、呼出一氧化氮和呼出气冷凝物（EBC），已被提议作为一种非侵入性的简单技术，用于研究气道中的肿瘤形成过程。通过向冷却系统呼气以冷凝呼出气体中的水蒸气，可轻松收集EBC。由于EBC含有可测量的气道炎症介质和氧化应激标志物，已证明其在研究各种呼吸疾病中的炎症和氧化应激变化方面很有用。此外，EBC也已被证明是监测哮喘等疾病严重程度以及作为药物治疗依从性替代指标的有用方法。目前，涉及EBC的肺癌研究仍然相对较少。然而，由于EBC是一种简单、非侵入性的技术，即使对患病患者也能轻松实施，因此它有潜力被验证用于肺癌早期诊断的筛查。
