Sniffing out Prostate Cancer—from Dogs to the eNose

Sniffing out Prostate Cancer—from Dogs to the eNose

L. Michael Glode, MD, FACP, FASCO

Jan 07, 2015

It is always humbling to see how much you can miss in trying to keep up with medicine's developments, even in an incredibly narrow area like prostate cancer. Fortunately, there are many crutches like Medscape that offer help (along with targeted ads of course). Reading through their recent post on the top stories in medicine in 2014, I was chagrined to learn that Medscape readers listed the eNose for detecting prostate cancer as the third most innovative advance in 2014. Really?? I hadn't heard a single presentation or comment on this at any of the cancer meetings I faithfully attend to keep up.

The article in question appeared in July in the Journal of Urology. Researchers in Finland (my "second country," having spent a delightful year on sabbatical there in the 1980s—and no, I don't speak the language) utilized the "ChemPro® 100-eNose" to sniff the air over urine samples from men with BPH vs. prostate cancer, and then determine whether the chemicals in that air could discriminate between the benign vs. malignant condition. Although the study was very small, (50 prostate cancer patients compared to 15 BPH patients), "the eNose reached a sensitivity of 78%, a specificity of 67% and AUC 0.77," according to the abstract.

There is substantial literature on the ability of trained dogs to detect cancer in humans by sniffing either their exhaled breath or urine. In one review, reported sensitivity and specificity can be close to 100% for lung cancer. However, as with any system that relies on an animal focusing on a difficult task, there seems to be a wide range of issues regarding reproducibility. A good example of how this research goes is an attempt to detect bladder cancer by training dogs to sniff the urine of patients vs. controls. Accuracy was clearly better than chance alone (41% vs. 14% expected by chance alone), but far below what we need to adopt a procedure for routine use in medicine. For prostate cancer, the Europeans seem to be taking the lead in attempting to improve on the technology—in one case, using a single trained "Belgian Malinois shepherd"!

The eNose used in the Finnish study is an example of ongoing attempts to replace the dog by using electronic detectors to sample volatile chemicals in air. In their study, a thin layer of urine was pipetted into a plastic petri dish to allow evaporation of the chemicals, and the resultant gas was ported to the machine, which is described in the article as follows: "The eNose used in this study is a commercially available model (ChemPro® 100, Environics Inc., Mikkeli, Finland) based on the ion mobility spectrometry principle. The device contains an ion mobility cell that consists of 8 electrode strips producing 2-channel output and a metal oxide based semiconductor cell. Together these sensors produce 18-channel measurement data. The sensors do not specify molecules but produce a characteristic smell print of the sample."

In accompanying editorials, there are concerns raised regarding the methodologies, how applicable this might be in the "real world," and so forth, but in lung cancer there is even some evidence that different stages and types of lung cancer can be detected using this sort of technology.

The holy grail in prostate cancer detection remains finding a way to non-invasively discriminate the "lethal phenotype" that needs treatment from the "background" of the >80% of men who will develop prostate cancer that will never bother them by the time they reach age 90. Perhaps this technology will evolve to contribute to that goal.

This post originally was published on prost8blog, a blog to help patients and their families understand various aspects of prostate cancer, and is reprinted with permission of Dr. Glodé.

Share this commentary with your Twitter followers

Disclaimer: 

The ideas and opinions expressed on the ASCO Connection Blogs do not necessarily reflect those of ASCO. None of the information posted on ASCOconnection.org is intended as medical, legal, or business advice, or advice about reimbursement for health care services. The mention of any product, service, company, therapy or physician practice on ASCOconnection.org does not constitute an endorsement of any kind by ASCO. ASCO assumes no responsibility for any injury or damage to persons or property arising out of or related to any use of the material contained in, posted on, or linked to this site, or any errors or omissions.

Comments

Bob Sokolove

Dec, 12 2022 4:37 PM

I had prostate cancer. It was debilitating, painful, and, in many ways, life-changing. Prostatitis affected my life massively – everything from sex, travel, work, and eating. Prostate cancer has taken a lot from me. First, it took my grandfather, then my dad, and uncles so being diagnosed with prostate cancer did not come as a complete shock. I couldn’t get an erection and had pain in my lower back. It felt like I had a vice around my waist. At that point, I was hammering all the medication I could. I was on three different antibiotics, and four different painkillers, but just don’t work for me. I have just adopted natural treatment by Dr. Ling and other nutritarian diet and I have been 97% recovered with no symptoms. I am living proof that if you catch prostate cancer, you can go back to living a normal life. If you need help with prostate cancer and health in general, contact him with this email: wenliangherbs@gmail.com


Advertisement
Back to Top