3 ms·

Breathalyser developed for lung cancer

15 points by soundsop 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
at the end of the article: "Sniff tests” for cancer have received much publicity in recent years. Dogs can sniff out people with cancer, but their sensitivity is less than 50 per cent." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060106002944.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060106002944.ht... Has that number quite a bit higher. "The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers." I'm thinking that this device has been developed only after realizing that if the dogs can do it a breathalyser could theoretically do it too, reliability and reproducibility might be more of an issue using the 'dog' method, I guess that it is much harder to calibrate a dog. I wonder where their claim of only 50% sensitivity comes from.
bdfh42 17y ago
Rather superficial report from the Telegraph. As one might expect from modern journalism this (and other) similar reports fail to note the very high levels of false positives and false negatives such a technique would produce. This 'might' be useful as additional evidence but as first line screening it would simply not work
- deleted 17y ago
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- jacquesm 17y ago
  The day a mainstream publication will mention such things and where the error bars were I'm going to be seriously impressed. The general trend over time seems to be less rather than more 'hard' information. Even in the science departments of such publications the 'human interest' angle creeps in more and more. It's closer to science entertainment than it is to real information that you could apply to something. In part this is because scientific papers seem to be written and titled to obfuscate rather than to enlighten, it is rare to see a paper that is so well written that someone active in a different subfield but interested in the subject matter would be able to understand even the abstract, forget about laypeople. They need to the press to explain these things in terms of everyday use. Incidentally, Hossam Haick is one of technology reviews top 35 scientists for 2008. A link with a lot more information on the device and the scientist: http://www.technologyreview.com/files/20768/TR35_Hossam_Haick.pdf?download&track http://www.technologyreview.com/files/20768/TR35_Hossam_Haic...
ankeshk 17y ago
This is good stuff. A gross sounding idea: why not fix the urinals and bathrooms with body waste analyzers? Potential to catch many a diseases early on with those...
- zck 17y ago
  You have to be careful about the false positive rate vs. the incidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox . It might not be a good idea to do this kind of widespread screening.

15 points by soundsop 17y ago

at the end of the article: "Sniff tests” for cancer have received much publicity in recent years. Dogs can sniff out people with cancer, but their sensitivity is less than 50 per cent." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060106002944.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060106002944.ht... Has that number quite a bit higher. "The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers." I'm thinking that this device has been developed only after realizing that if the dogs can do it a breathalyser could theoretically do it too, reliability and reproducibility might be more of an issue using the 'dog' method, I guess that it is much harder to calibrate a dog. I wonder where their claim of only 50% sensitivity comes from.

bdfh42 17y ago

Rather superficial report from the Telegraph. As one might expect from modern journalism this (and other) similar reports fail to note the very high levels of false positives and false negatives such a technique would produce. This 'might' be useful as additional evidence but as first line screening it would simply not work

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 17y ago
The day a mainstream publication will mention such things and where the error bars were I'm going to be seriously impressed. The general trend over time seems to be less rather than more 'hard' information. Even in the science departments of such publications the 'human interest' angle creeps in more and more. It's closer to science entertainment than it is to real information that you could apply to something. In part this is because scientific papers seem to be written and titled to obfuscate rather than to enlighten, it is rare to see a paper that is so well written that someone active in a different subfield but interested in the subject matter would be able to understand even the abstract, forget about laypeople. They need to the press to explain these things in terms of everyday use. Incidentally, Hossam Haick is one of technology reviews top 35 scientists for 2008. A link with a lot more information on the device and the scientist: http://www.technologyreview.com/files/20768/TR35_Hossam_Haick.pdf?download&track http://www.technologyreview.com/files/20768/TR35_Hossam_Haic...

ankeshk 17y ago

This is good stuff. A gross sounding idea: why not fix the urinals and bathrooms with body waste analyzers? Potential to catch many a diseases early on with those...

zck 17y ago
You have to be careful about the false positive rate vs. the incidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox . It might not be a good idea to do this kind of widespread screening.