Scientists have developed a new type of breath test to diagnose stomach cancers - with an accuracy rate of over 90 per cent.
The new test works by detecting biomarkers - a chemical profile that is associated with specific stomach complaints or types of cancer - in the air people exhale.
Scientists from Israel and China took breath samples from 130 patients with a range of different stomach complaints as well as those with stomach cancers.
Scientists found that nanomaterial sensors had over a 90 per cent success rate at differentiating between stomach cancers and more benign conditions.
The nanomaterial sensors were also more than 90 per cent accurate at detecting the difference between early and late stage gastric cancers.
The researchers hope the breath test could be used as an alternative to endoscopies, an accurate but more invasive procedure that is used to diagnose gastric cancers.
"The promising findings from this early study suggest that using a breath test to diagnose stomach cancers, as well as more benign complaints, could be a future alternative to endoscopies - which can be costly and time consuming, as well as unpleasant to the patient," Professor Hossam Haick, lead researcher from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, said.
"Nevertheless, these results are at an early stage and support the concept of a breath test to detect stomach cancers but further validations are needed. Indeed, we're already building on the success of this study with a larger-scale clinical trial," Haick said.
"Around 7,000 people develop stomach cancer in the UK each year and most of these are in their advanced stages when they are diagnosed," Haick added.
"But if found to be accurate enough the nanomaterial breath test presents a new possibility for screening a population for stomach cancer, which would hopefully lead to earlier diagnosis of the disease," Haick said.
"The results of this latest study are promising � although large scale trials will now be needed to confirm these findings," Kate Law, director of clinical research at Cancer Research UK, said in a statement.
The study was published in the British Journal of Cancer.
