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posted by janrinok on Monday December 26 2016, @09:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the of-course-I-smell-I'm-ill dept.

A team of international researchers recently unveiled a nano array that can identify the chemical signatures of 17 different diseases, possibly bringing us closer to the day when doctors might be able to use a medical tricorder a la Star Trek to instantly diagnose a patient's conditions.

Though it isn't exactly a new idea – Hippocrates wrote about the correlation between breath odors and disease back in 400 B.C. and traditional Chinese medicine has long seen halitosis as an indication of an unbalanced qi – using breath tests to diagnose and monitor bodily disorders and disease is a research field that has been gaining momentum in recent years. And for good reason too. It would be the ultimate diagnostic test – potentially inexpensive and painless (not to mention a godsend for anyone with a fear of needles), and it would be able to deliver results fairly quickly too.

That said, in order for this to happen, breathalyzers need to be able to identify more than one disease at any given time. The technologies developed to date have a limited scope and are designed to detect only one kind of disease, such as a particular type of cancer or diabetes. And while there have been attempts to identify a wider scope of ailments, there has been no real breakthrough at distinguishing different diseases in a breath sample – till now.


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by inertnet on Monday December 26 2016, @11:36AM

    by inertnet (4071) on Monday December 26 2016, @11:36AM (#446037) Journal

    Breathtaking research.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday December 26 2016, @12:43PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday December 26 2016, @12:43PM (#446051) Journal

    Smells like cancer.

    If this works, CNN will no longer be able to air feel-good stories about dogs detecting cancer, etc.

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