AnonTechie writes:
"Sniffing out cancer with electronic noses:
We may soon be able to obtain easy and early diagnoses of diseases by smell. This week researchers found one odour-sniffing machine was as good as a mammogram at detecting breast cancer and many other devices capable of spotting other diseases may be on the way".
Dogs have demonstrated this skill for quite some time and are used in the UK to alert their owners of impending medical problems. However, until recently, it has proven impossible to replicate this ability. It seems that this is no longer the case.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Boxzy on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:03PM
installs this at the entrance?
Go green, Go Soylent.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:12PM
I would assume "other diseases" would include, say, THC smoke residues.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by davester666 on Sunday March 09 2014, @07:16PM
Employer? How about insurance company?
(Score: 1) by timbim on Sunday March 09 2014, @09:09PM
On the other hand this will probably just add the over diagnosis that's already going on. Continuing to victimize people who would have lead a healthy worry free life. Oh well, it's all about the money.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe on Sunday March 09 2014, @10:51PM
If there data holds-up, then it would actually reduce the false positive rate (check the PLoS ONE paper). Also, this test would probably be used in place of the existing test in lower-risk populations because of the lower false positives and the fact that it is a lot less invasive.
Every once in a while, money can motivate people to make better products.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @02:24PM
It smells like Dice.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09 2014, @09:12PM
It's a reminder how much of a black art the modern medicine is.
"This thing works. Kinda. We don't know how."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by chromas on Sunday March 09 2014, @10:12PM
There would probably be a bit of an uproar if somebody tried fully controlled scientific experimentation on thousands of people, systematically attempting to give them various diseases and psychological issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10 2014, @12:04AM
That doesn't dispute the contention that medicine is still largely a black art.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday March 10 2014, @07:14AM
I get where you're coming from, but I think "black art" is a bit strong.
Medicine is science, it's just one that has to deal with a nigh-uncountable number of variables. Each human body is utterly unique, and has thousands, if not millions of variations from the norm (whatever that may be) - many of them hidden and/or unknown. These make it very hard to tell exactly whether it was your fancy new drug that fixed/ caused the problem, or whether it was some crazy interaction with a particular genetic abnormality / lifestyle choice / environmental factor / something else entirely.
Happily, the brain-boggling computational power and data-mining techniques now at our disposal mean that we will very soon be able to see through the noise and really learn what's going on in there. We just need a few years or decades worth of solid data that is created, tagged and indexed in a way that the computers can make good use of. I wouldn't be surprised if most of medicine and biology become solved problems within our lifetimes.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Joe on Sunday March 09 2014, @10:38PM
Breath Test Paper (about 250 participants):
The data shows that the breath test will give a false positive 30% of the time and will correctly identify those with breast cancer about 80% of the time. While mammograms seem to have about 33% false positives and get around 86% correct.
This seems like a good idea since it will cut down on the false positives in a lower-risk population (which is a big problem) and mammograms could be used for high-risk patients (where a higher accuracy may be preferred)
Paper Link: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.137 1%2Fjournal.pone.0090226 [plosone.org]
Fruit Fly Antenna Paper (six cell lines):
The paper compared the ability of fruit fly antennas to detect differences among five cancer cell lines and one that is non-tumorigenic
The "healthy control" from the paper is an immortal cell line isolated around 25 years ago, so ignore anything the authors say about results demonstrating that the antennas are "suitable for medical applications".
Paper Link: http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140106/srep03576/f ull/srep03576.html?WT.ec_id=SREP-20140107 [nature.com]
- Joe
(Score: 3, Insightful) by prospectacle on Monday March 10 2014, @01:26AM
Seems trivial to say at first, but a lot of diagnostic and treatment methods are assisted by computers. More powerful computers (combined with the corresponding research, specialised hardware, and expertise) can make certain kinds of medical procedures affordable and practical that weren't before.
I wonder if there's a relationship between Moore's law and the rate of increase in life expectancy (in developed countries at least).
Of course there's always lifestyle factors. If we can stop eating junk food long enough for the life expectancy to increase by more than 1 year per year, then we'll be set.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic