Early detection is everything in lung cancer.

HMRI and University of Newcastle Cancer Detection and Therapy PhD candidate, Emma Morris says that many lung cancer patients are diagnosed when they are already at stage four.

“If we can catch it while it’s still treatable, there’s around a 70 per cent success rate for treatment,” she says.

Dr Renee Goreham, who has been working on this project since she taught in Wellington, New Zealand, has worked alongside Masters student Garima Dobhal, PhD Zarinah Amin, and now Emma, to develop the lung cancer breathalyser.

Dr Goreham says, “Until the ‘80s, extracellular vesicles (EVs) were considered trash, but now we know that almost every living cell releases them. They communicate with the cells and can even prime sites for cancer to infect.”

Emma is currently working on a study of healthy patient breath samples to characterise EVs in healthy breath.

The next step will see the researchers working with the Hunter Cancer Biobank to create a library of breath samples from lung cancer patients so that they can isolate the EV biomarkers specific to lung cancer.

The breathalyser would then test for these biomarkers.

“We want it to be a device that people breathe into and get a reading straight away,” says Dr Goreham.

“Lung cancer is normally diagnosed via imaging or a bronchoscopy, and then confirmed with a tissue biopsy. Doctors will still want to visualise the cancer but a breathalyser is a much less invasive screening method to get that initial reading,” says Dr Goreham.

About Lung Cancer

• Lung cancer is the 5^th most diagnosed cancer in Australia with 14,782 new cases of lung cancer diagnosed in 2023.
• 17% of cancer deaths in Australia in 2023 were due to lung cancer.
• In 2023, it’s estimated that 1 in 20 people were be diagnosed with lung cancer by the age of 85.
• There are two main types of lung cancer – small-cell and non-small cell. 85-90% of lung cancers are non-small cell cancers.
• Life style factors such as current or former tobacco smoking, environmental or occupational factors such as exposure to second-hand smoking, asbestos, diesel exhaust, silica, and air pollution, and personal factors such as increasing age and family history can all contribute to an increased risk of developing lung cancer.