Comparison of volatile organic compounds from lung cancer patients and healthy controls—challenges and limitations of an observational study

This paper outlines the design and performance of an observational study on the profiles of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the breath of 37 lung cancer patients and 23 healthy controls of similar age. The need to quantify each VOC considered as a potential disease marker on the basis of individual calibration is elaborated, and the quality control measures required to maintain reproducibility in breath sampling and subsequent instrumental trace VOC analysis using solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry over a study period of 14 months are described. Twenty-four VOCs were quantified on the basis of their previously suggested potential as cancer markers. The concentration of aromatic compounds in the breath was increased, as expected, in smokers, while lung cancer patients displayed significantly increased levels of oxygenated VOCs such as aldehydes, 2-butanone and 1-butanol. Although sets of selected oxygenated VOCs displayed sensitivities and specificities between 80% and 90% using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with leave-one-out cross validation, the effective selectivity of the breath VOC approach with regard to cancer detection is clearly limited. Results are discussed against the background of the literature on volatile cancer marker investigations and the prospects of linking increased VOC levels in patients’ breath with approaches that employ sniffer dogs. Experience from this study and the literature suggests that the currently available methodology is not able to use breath VOCs to reliably discriminate between cancer patients and healthy controls. Observational studies often tend to note significant differences in levels of certain oxygenated VOCs, but without the resolution required for practical application. Any step towards the exploitation of differences in VOC profiles for illness detection would have to solve current restrictions set by the low and variable VOC concentrations. Further challenges are the technical complexity of studies involving breath sampling and possibly the limited capability of current analytical procedures to detect unstable marker candidates.