肺癌患者呼出氣體凝結液的呼吸體學分析

Abstract

肺癌的早期偵測可以大幅改善病人的治療結果。當前肺癌篩檢的主要方法是低劑量電腦斷層掃描，但仍有開發更快速且更具成本效益的篩檢方法的需求。本研究探討了呼出氣體中揮發性有機化合物的代謝體學分析作為肺癌早期偵測工具的潛力。 我們使用頂空固相微萃取法和氣相層析質譜法，分析了72名肺癌患者和13名健康個體呼出氣體凝結液樣本中揮發性有機化合物的組成。透過單變量以及多變量分析，我們發現肺癌患者與健康個體之間揮發性有機化合物的組成有顯著差異，而肺癌不同分期及兩種肺癌亞型（腺癌和鱗狀細胞癌）之間的差異則不顯著，我們提出了18種有潛力作為肺癌診斷生物標記的揮發性有機化合物和5種有潛力作為肺癌分期生物標記的揮發性有機化合物。然而，仍需進一步的研究來驗證這些潛在生物標記的可靠性。

Early detection of lung cancer can significantly improve patient outcomes. Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is the main lung cancer screening method, yet developing other quicker and more cost-effective methods is desirable. This study investigated the potential of breathomic analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath as a tool for the early detection of lung cancer. We analyzed the VOC composition in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) samples collected from 72 lung cancer patients and 13 healthy individuals using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-­­­SPME) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). By univariate and multivariate analysis, we found significant differences in VOC profiles between lung cancer patients and healthy individuals. In contrast, the differences between lung cancer stages and the two lung cancer subtypes, adenocarcinoma (AC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), were nonsignificant. We proposed 18 VOCs as potential biomarkers for lung cancer diagnosis and 5 for cancer staging. However, additional studies are required to validate these potential biomarkers.