Volatile organic compounds in exhaled air from patients with lung cancer.

Using a specially developed breath collection technique and computer-assisted gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), we have identified in the exhaled air of lung cancer patients several volatile organic compounds that appear to be associated with the disease. The GC/MS profiles of 12 samples from lung cancer patients and 17 control samples were analyzed by using general computerized statistical procedures to distinguish lung cancer patients from controls. The selected volatile compounds had sufficient diagnostic power in the GC/MS profiles to allow almost complete differentiation between the two groups in a limited patient population.