Carpagnano Giovanna E, Lacedonia Donato, Spanevello Antonio, Cotugno Grazia, Saliani Valerio, Martinelli Domenico, Foschino-Barbaro Maria P
Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Institute of Respiratory Disease, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy,
Med Oncol. 2015 Oct;32(10):237. doi: 10.1007/s12032-015-0681-0. Epub 2015 Sep 1.
Recently the exhaled breath temperature (EBT) was seen to increase in non-small cell lung cancer and was subsequently proposed as a possible non-invasive tool for its diagnosis. The need for further studies that confirm the previous findings and support the potential scope of this method underlies the main aim of this study that seeks to explore the pathogenic mechanisms determining the EBT in lung cancer. We enrolled 44 consecutive patients with a radiological suspicion of lung cancer and ten healthy non-smoker volunteers, after which their EBT was measured. On the same day, the subjects underwent breath condensate collection for the measurement of leukotriene (LTB)-4 and of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the former being a marker of airways inflammation and the latter of neoangiogenesis. We confirmed the presence of a higher EBT in lung cancer patients compared to the controls. The multiple linear regression model showed that the exhaled VEGF was the only predictor of elevations of EBT. In conclusion, it can be stated that for the first time in this study, we have shown that EBT is higher in subjects with lung cancer and that the airways angiogenesis drives the increase in EBT in lung cancer. Moreover, the study suggests the potential for the use of EBT in monitoring the lung cancer progression, although the implementation of more in-depth studies to verify this result is recommended.
最近发现非小细胞肺癌患者的呼出气温度（EBT）升高，随后有人提出将其作为一种可能的非侵入性诊断工具。需要进一步的研究来证实先前的发现并支持该方法的潜在应用范围，这构成了本研究的主要目的，即探索决定肺癌中EBT的致病机制。我们连续招募了44名经影像学检查怀疑患有肺癌的患者和10名健康的非吸烟志愿者，随后测量了他们的EBT。在同一天，受试者进行了呼气冷凝物采集，以测量白三烯（LTB）-4和血管内皮生长因子（VEGF），前者是气道炎症的标志物，后者是新血管生成的标志物。我们证实肺癌患者的EBT高于对照组。多元线性回归模型显示，呼出的VEGF是EBT升高的唯一预测因子。总之，可以说在本研究中我们首次表明肺癌患者的EBT更高，并且气道血管生成驱动了肺癌中EBT的升高。此外，该研究表明EBT在监测肺癌进展方面具有潜在应用价值，不过建议开展更深入的研究来验证这一结果。
