Technion: Innovative gastric
cancer-detection technology developed by the Technion can be used for
the early detection of stomach cancer and for identifying persons at
risk for developing the disease. The new detection method, based on
breath analysis, has significant advantages over the existing detection
technology: Gut reports that the new method is quick, simple, inexpensive and non-invasive.
Gastric cancer is one of the most
lethal forms of cancer and in most cases, its diagnosis involves an
endoscopy (the insertion of a tube into the esophagus, requiring that
the patient fast and receive an intravenous sedative). Treatment is
aggressive chemotherapy, radiation and the full or partial removal of
the stomach. The disease develops in a series of well-defined steps, but
there’s currently no effective, reliable, and non-invasive screening
test for picking up these changes early on. Thus, many people succumb to
stomach cancer only because it was not diagnosed in time.
The new technology, developed by
Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion Faculty of Chemical Engineering, can
be used to detect premalignant lesions at the earliest stage, when
healthy cells start becoming cancerous.
The research, published in Gut
as part of the doctoral thesis of Mr. Haitham Amal, was conducted in
conjunction with a Latvian research group headed by Prof. Marcis Leja,
based on the largest population sample ever in a trial of this type. 484
people participated in the trial, 99 of whom had already been diagnosed
with stomach cancer. All the participants were tested for Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium known to increase the risk for stomach cancer, and two breath samples were taken from each person.
The first sample from each
participant was analyzed using the GCMS technique, which measures
volatile organic substances in exhaled breath. The researchers noted
that GCMS technology cannot be used to detect stomach cancer because the
testing is very expensive and requires lengthy processing times and
considerable expertise to operate the equipment.
The second breath sample was
tested using nanoarray analysis, the unique technology developed by
Prof. Haick, combined with a pattern recognition algorithm.
The findings:
- Based on the concentrations of 8 specific substances (out of 130) in the oral cavity, the new technology can distinguish between three groups: gastric cancer patients, persons who have precancerous stomach lesions, and healthy individuals.
- The new technology accurately distinguishes between the various pre-malignant stages.
- The new technology can be used to identify persons at risk for developing gastric cancer.
- The diagnosis is accurate, regardless of other factors such as age, sex, smoking habits, alcohol consumption and the use of anti-oxidant drugs.
In short, the nano-array analysis
method developed by Prof. Haick is accurate, sensitive technology that
provides a simple and inexpensive alternative to existing tests (such as
GCMS). This new technology offers early, effective detection of persons
at risk for developing stomach cancer, without unnecessary invasive
tests (endoscopy). In order to assess the accuracy and effectiveness of
the new, a wide-scale clinical trial is currently under way in Europe,
with thousands of participants who have cancerous or pre-cancerous
tumors.
About Prof. Hossam Haick
Prof. Hossam Haick, who joined
the senior staff at the Technion Faculty of Chemical Engineering in
2006, has been working since that year on the development of innovative,
non-invasive technology for detecting cancer and other diseases. This
technology is based on an “electronic nose” – an apparatus capable of
detecting illnesses by analyzing a patient’s exhaled breath.
Prof. Haick, a native of
Nazareth, completed his Ph.D. studies at the Technion by the time he was
27 and went to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and Caltech
Institute of Technology in California. He returned to the Technion in
2006 and his research group was awarded one million euros in grants by
the European Union, which was very impressed by his research into
artificial olfactory systems. Today he heads a consortium that includes
Siemens and several universities, research institutes and companies in
Germany, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Latvia and Israel. Since joining the
senior faculty in the Chemical Engineering Department in 2006, Prof.
Haick has won dozens of awards, grants and international honors. These
include the Marie Curie Excellence Grant, European Research Council
(ERC) grant and the Bill & Melinda Gates Award. Prof. Haick was
nominated to MIT’s list of the 35 leading young scientists worldwide,
received the Knight of the Order of Academic Palms, from the French
Government and won the Hershel Rich Technion Innovation Award (twice),
as well as the Tenne Prize for Excellence in the Science of
Nanotechnology. He has also been recognized for his outstanding teaching
skills and is the recipient of the Yanai Prize for Academic Excellence.
In 2014, at the initiative of the president of the Technion, Prof.
Haick headed an MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in nanotechnology and
nano-sensors that had an enrollment of 42,000.