The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
The breakthrough device can identify lung and bowel cancer before any symptoms develop – meaning patients can be treated sooner
A breath test for cancer that could save over 10,000 lives a year is to have NHS trials.
The breakthrough device can identify lung and bowel cancer before any symptoms develop – meaning patients can be treated sooner, boosting their chances of survival and saving the NHS an estimated £245million.
Experts hope the British technology could eventually be used to detect other serious diseases.
The system uses a nanochip the size of a coin to analyse patients’ breath for tiny traces of chemicals produced by the disease.
Billy Boyle of Cambridge University spin-off firm Owlstone Nanotech, which developed the device, said it is “like a sniffer dog on a mobile phone”.
He told Sky News: “We can test people with no symptoms – they aren’t coughing, there’s no blood – and catch the disease at a stage where it makes a huge difference.”
The LuCID device – lung cancer indicator detection – will be assessed in two hospitals this summer in a £1million clinical trial.
If successful, it could be rolled out to GP surgeries and even pharmacies, said Dr Jonathan Bennet of Glenfield Hospital in Leicester – one of the two centres where trials will be held.
It would mean high-risk patients, such as smokers aged 50 or over, could be routinely tested close to home for signs of the disease.
Mr Boyle said early detection of cancer is vital. He claimed LuCID could save 10,000 lives a year and save the NHS £245million,
His research was inspired by his wife Kate Gross, who died aged 36 on Christmas Day after a two-year battle with colon cancer. A former adviser to Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Ms Gross wrote movingly about the disease she called “The Nuisance”.
Mr Boyle told last night how she had been diagnosed at a late stage.
He added: “The one thing that can make a difference is to detect earlier.
“Because when you detect earlier, all the existing techniques – surgery, chemotherapy – they work.
“We spent years sitting in cancer wards and you see a lot of people there. And they’re there because the disease is detected too late.
“Early detection means you’ll have fewer people in those waiting rooms. I think we have a real opportunity to try and improve the lives of patients.”
A desktop version will be used in the hospital trials, but experts are also working on a mobile version.
Many only learn they have it once the disease is well advanced.
join