In a ground breaking development, early diagnosis of patients with oral cancer can be possible. This is possible now, thanks to Ancon’s Nanoparticle Biomarker Tagging (NBT) technology. Early diagnosis can have a huge impact on the prospects of patients diagnosed with mouth cancer. With the five-year survival rate of 60% for decades, experts are confident to turn it down
Cancerous tumors and other illnesses produce a special chemical, known as a volatile organic compound (VOC). This peculiar signature is not otherwise produced in the healthy human body and can be used to diagnose disease. The NBT technology is capable of identifying these biomarkers in a patients’ breath.
With the identification and detecting the presence of such VOCs with biomarker tagging, it’s possible to reliably screen and diagnose illnesses like mouth cancer. The most important advantage of this technology is diagnosis at far earlier stages than existing old methods of X-rays, CT scans and MRIs.
The Detection of key biomarkers can be critically difficult. Biomarkers in the breath are available in very minute quantity. Hence, their detection is not easy among the presence of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other molecules.
NBT technology, on the other hand, is extremely sensitive. It can easily detect far lower concentrations of the VOCS, in just one minute’s breathe. This speeds up the process of taking sample and can generate reports fast than other prevailing methods.
After the identification of VOCs, the NBT Technology has software that is able to compile and anamyse the data quickly. Their ability to process such huge data in incredible frame of time with utmost accuracy, sets them apart from other methods used these days.
Previously used breath testing technology, includes gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMA). But NBT has an upper hand, as it is easily portable. Its desktop size enclosure can examine biomarkers, by physically amplifying it. This can then easily detected with a laser counter. NBT has ability to amplify a biomarker by nearly one billion times its mass. This makes the identification of a single ion or molecule of VOC clear and easy.
With availability of NBT technology, the authenticity of other detection methods seems challenged. The other methods such as X rays, can give ambiguous results. The darker or lighter areas shown in X RAYS may indicate cancer, but it can also come from harmless source. To countercheck such results, patients have to undergo further testing process, leading to biopsies. This creates lots of anxiety among patients, along with time and resource wastage. With the ability to detect novel chemicals from breath directly, NBT technology has pushed the horizon of diagnosis. A simple breath screening test can enable patients to have fast results without unnecessary extra procedures. The need to rely on such inaccurate methods of diagnosis.
The occurrence of false positive results is also another hurdle in fast diagnosis. Around 10% of the time in oral cancer screening, false positive results can be generated. This depends on the specific method and type of cancer. Among of which lung cancer is the most prevalent one.
Commonly used diagnostic test such as CT Scans have a 36% rate of false-positive diagnosis and X-rays cannot detect it at an early enough stage all together. But with the detection VOCs from breath, NBT may enable clinicians to stop relying on less accurate methods of diagnosis. Superior magnification technology
Similar ion-magnifying technologies like the Faraday cup or Wilson chamber technology, still lag behind NBT technology. After successful preclinical trials, NBT is all set for full clinical trials by the end of 2020
With the aim to promote non-invasive diagnosis, NBT developers are excited to market this technology all over the world.
-article published in Medical Technology
