Characterization of Head and Neck Malignant Tumors Using an Electronic Nose (HNeNose)

Approximately 60,000 new cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, accounting for about 5% of cancer cases diagnosed in North America and approximately 1-2% of cancer deaths.

Smoking and alcohol are the main risk factors for head and neck tumors and are recognized in 75% of cases. In contrast, consumption of fruits and vegetables was found to be a protective factor. The symptoms are varied and can include sore throat and / or neck, difficulty or pain in swallowing, difficulty in breathing and hoarseness, facial movement disorder and other.

Multidisciplinary decision making and treatment is important for these patients due to the complexity of treatment and short-and long-term complications resulting from chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgical intervention.

About a third of patients are diagnosed with disease at stage 1 or 2. These patients are treated by surgery or radiation. Five years survival for patients diagnosed with stage I is around 90% and 70% for patients diagnosed with stage 2. Despite surgical and radiation treatment when patients present with locally advanced disease, only 30% -50% of them survive after five years. Therefore, many studies have been conducted in an attempt to improve prognosis. Improved results are seen in combination therapy with chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Patient survival depends on the stage of the disease, hence the importance of early detection. Research Laboratory of Dr. Hossam Haick developed a device that simulates the human nose. The device reveals patterns of volatile organic compounds emitted by breathing cancer cells. This is why it is referred to as "electronic nose". It includes an array of tiny nanometer sized sensors connected to an electronic computation unit. Because of their small size and electrical properties, the sensors are able to "smell" the changes in the composition of the materials that characterize cancer. Discovery of bio - cancer markers using breath samples offers several advantages: a) The breath samples are not invasive; b) air exhaled contains mixtures less complex than those found in blood or urine, and c) breath tests allow direct monitoring in real-time.

In this study we want to test the reliability of the developed device in real clinical conditions. Another goal of these experiments is to characterize the differences between respiratory specimens for various disease stages and to examine whether there is a relationship between the results of the samples to tumor volume (calculated using diagnostic CT scans). Due to its simplicity, positive results will allow us to consider using the device as a screening device for head and neck cancer.