Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Neuroscience and Sense Organs, Section of Respiratory Disease, University "Aldo Moro" of Bari, Bari, Italy.
University Hospital "Sv. Ivan Rilski", Urvich St., 13, 1612 Sofia, Bulgaria.
Biomed Res Int. 2022 Feb 21;2022:1515274. doi: 10.1155/2022/1515274. eCollection 2022.
Exhaled breath temperature (EBT) has been shown to reflect airway inflammation as well as increased vascularization, both involved in the pathogenesis of lung cancer. The aim of this study was to look for evidence that continuous EBT monitoring by such a device may help the early detection of relapse of lung cancer in patients with NSCLC who have been subjected to surgery with radical intent. . We included 11 subjects, who had been subjected to lung resection with radical intent for NSCLC in a prospective observational study. All patients received individual devices for EBT measurement and used them daily for 24 months after surgery. Subjects were also followed up by means of regular standard-of-care clinical and radiologic monitoring for lung cancer at four intervals separated by 6 months (T0, T1, T2, T3, and T4). In 5 patients, relapse of lung cancer was documented by means of lung biopsies. All of them recorded an elevation of their EBT at least one-time interval (T1), corresponding to 6 months, before the relapse was diagnosed at T4. The individual EBT graphs over time differed among these patients, and their mean EBT variability increased by +4% towards the end of 24 months of monitoring. By contrast, patients without a relapse did not document an elevation of their EBT and their variability decreased by -1.4%.
Our pilot study provided evidence that continuous EBT monitoring can help in the early detection of lung cancer relapse.
呼气温度（EBT）已被证明可反映气道炎症和血管生成增加，这两者均与肺癌的发病机制有关。本研究的目的是寻找证据，证明通过此类设备进行连续的 EBT 监测可能有助于检测接受根治性手术的 NSCLC 患者肺癌复发。 我们纳入了 11 名在一项前瞻性观察研究中因 NSCLC 接受根治性肺切除术的患者。所有患者均接受了 EBT 测量的个体化设备，并在手术后 24 个月内每天使用。还通过在四个时间间隔（T0、T1、T2、T3 和 T4）每 6 个月进行常规的护理标准临床和放射学监测对患者进行随访，以监测肺癌。在 5 名患者中，通过肺活检记录了肺癌复发。所有患者均至少在 T1（6 个月）时记录到 EBT 升高，然后在 T4 时诊断出复发。这些患者的个体 EBT 曲线随时间而异，其平均 EBT 变异在 24 个月监测结束时增加了+4%。相比之下，没有复发的患者 EBT 没有升高，其变异减少了-1.4%。
我们的初步研究结果提供了证据，表明连续 EBT 监测有助于早期检测肺癌复发。
