In a welcome development, researchers say a new breath test can quickly and accurately detect throat and stomach cancers – speeding up screening and diagnosis of the disease, which is often caught too late for treatment.
In clinical trials, researchers from Imperial College London were able to accurately identify oesophago-gastric cancers from breath samples 85% of the time, in patients attending for a diagnostic endoscopy or surgery.
There are more than 15,000 new cases of gastric and oesophageal cancers in the UK every year, accounting for 15% of cancer-related deaths globally.
Both cancers are usually diagnosed in the advanced stages as symptoms only become noticeable once the disease develops. As a result, the long-term survival rate is about 15% in the UK.
At present, doctors diagnose oesophageal and gastric cancers by carrying out an endoscopy. However, the procedure is invasive and only two per cent of patients who are referred for an endoscopy by GPs are correctly diagnosed.
Scientists hope that this breakthrough can be used to help clinicians decide whether patients need further investigations. The eventual hope is that clinicians will be able to order a breath teat in the same way as routine blood tests, which would be a major step forward in diagnosing and treating oesophageal and gastric cancers more effectively.