Skin Cancer Carries Its Own Scent

Aug. 21 -- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have identified an "odor profile" for skin cancer, with an eye toward developing a fast, simple and noninvasive test to diagnose the most common form of skin cancer in the United States.

"We found that the odor profile coming from the skin of skin cancer patients was markedly different than that coming from healthy skin," noted study author Michelle Gallagher, who conducted her research while a postdoctoral fellow at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

"So, we think that this kind of biomarker could be used in a rapid and noninvasive way to detect skin cancer," she said. "And this would be novel, because now the only way to do so is with a visual exam and a biopsy, which is, of course, invasive."

Gallagher presented the findings Wednesday at the American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition in Philadelphia.

Gallagher said that the specific chemical analysis she and her team used to explore odor profiling for skin cancer had not previously been attempted.

She noted, however, that other research teams have conducted work with dogs trained to detect skin cancers through smell.

Odor profiling has also been tested in the past to screen for other types of cancer. For example, the Cleveland Clinic announced in February that their investigators had successfully used an inexpensive breath sensor that detected lung cancer accurately in 75 percent of cases.

In all the research, scientists were able to differentiate healthy odor profiles from cancerous ones by picking up on the unique smells generated by the presence of differing amounts of naturally occurring chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in healthy versus diseased tissue.

In the current work, the authors first sampled the air above back and forearm areas among 25 healthy men and women between the ages of 19 and 80. Then, they tested the air above tumor sites in 11 basal cell carcinoma patients, as well as above the disease-free skin of 11 healthy volunteers.