Breast cancer is one of the most common and one of the most treatable human malignancies. One in every ten women now develops breast cancer at some time in her life. Fortunately, there is now conclusive evidence that early detection with screening mammography can reduce mortality from the disease. But mammography is not without its own problems: many women find the required breast compression to be uncomfortable and even painful. Also, the test is comparatively expensive and generates a large number of false positive findings, resulting in needless anxiety and biopsies. There is a clinical need for an alternative method of screening for breast cancer which is at least equally accurate, but is less painful, less expensive, and free of potentially hazardous radiation.

We performed a pilot study of a breath test for breast cancer at two New York hospitals, supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute. We found that breath markers of oxidative stress were altered in breast cancer, and provided an accurate new marker of the disease. The negative predictive value of the breath test was equivalent to a screening mammogram, indicating that a breath test might be used as a noninvasive screening test for breast cancer.

A recent study at the University of Western Australia led to similar findings. In an article soon to appear in The Journal of Breath Research, we found that the breath test detected breast cancer with 83% accuracy, better than the reported accuracy of film or digital mammograpy.

(PDF Document) Phillips M, Cataneo RN, Ditkoff BA, Fisher P, Greenberg J, Gunawardena R, Kwon CS, Rahbari-Oskoui F and Wong C: Volatile markers of breast cancer in the breath. The Breast Journal 2003; 9(3): 184-191.

(PDF Document) Phillips M, Cataneo RN, Greenberg J, Gunawardena R, Naidu A and Rahbari-Oskoui F: Effect of age on the breath methylated alkane contour, a display of apparent new markers of oxidative stress. Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine 2000: 136: 243-9.