New Device Breathing Optimism Into Future Of Medical Testing
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A new generation of diagnostic tools may soon be able to sniff out all sorts of diseases using your breath, including various cancers, liver disease, kidney failure, diabetes, asthma and tuberculosis.
"I just blow the balloon," says Pat Patwardhan, a patient. "They can analyze and come back with the answers for you."
"Anything in the blood that is potentially volatile at body temperature, we can detect it in the breath," Dr. Raed Dweik, the director of the Pulmonary Vascular Program at the Cleveland Clinic, sais. "The limitation in the past has been because we didn't have the technology."
Cleveland Clinic researchers say doctors detected severe heart failure using the patient's breath in one study with 100 percent accuracy.
In another, they used breath to detect lung cancer, and help doctors monitor how the patient responded to treatment.
"It's really the future of medical testing in general. We are just scratching the surface on the utility of breath testing in medical diagnosis," said Dr. Dweik.
More research is still needed before these tests can replace body scans and biopsies.
But Dr. Norman Edelman, of the American Lung Association, says he's optimistic about the potential of this technology.
"We could screen many, many more people for lung cancer and probably save many, many more lives," he said.
Doctors say these tests are quick, non- invasive and cheaper than traditional testing.
And Dr. Dweik adds that right now these breath machines are large and cumbersome, but doctors are looking for ways to shrink them for everyday use.
"Our goal is to build a miniaturized device that is very similar to the breathalyzer test. If we build that then eventually it can be tested at home or in the clinic or anywhere else," he said.
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