A Shanghai hospital is collaborating with a biotechnology company from the United Kingdom to start clinical trials of a method to screen for cancer through breathing tests - which it said has great potential to become an easy, noninvasive and less expensive way for early diagnosis of various cancers.It was the first time that such a technology had come to the Chinese mainland, said Renji Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Chinese partner in the Sino-UK project, during a signing ceremony with Cambridge-based Owlstone Medical on Monday in Shanghai.The British company will provide its patented devices and training, and the Shanghai hospital will provide lab space and a research team.Subjects of the test need only wear a breathalyzer and breathe for several minutes as the device checks for volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. The test samples the whole body, doctors said.VOCs are produced as the end product of metabolic processes within the human body. Underlying changes in metabolic activity can produce VOC patterns characteristic of specific diseases, they said.Owlstone said on its website that the device uses a chemical sensor on a tiny silicon chip.Wang Liwei, director of the lab, said the China-UK team is working on a detailed proposal for the trial, which includes setting standards for the telltale VOCs and the age range of the subjects. The trials are expected to begin in three months."Such trials have been carried out in the UK on 4,000 individuals and achieved an accuracy rate that qualified for clinical application. So it may win approval for use in the UK soon," Wang said.He said the hospital will first carry out trials looking for lung cancer, the most common form of cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in China. The target for the trials is 70 percent accuracy.With a total of 787,000 newly diagnosed patients every year, lung cancer tops China's malignant tumor incidence and accounts for nearly one-fourth of cancer deaths in the country, according to the National Cancer Center."Such a fast and noninvasive means of screening will reduce the cost of medical treatment for individuals and society as a whole and improve the overall early diagnosis and survival rate of cancer patients," Wang said.Chris Hodkinson, vice-president of business development at Owlstone Medical, said the cooperation will improve the technology and eventually benefit more cancer patients at home and abroad.Experts said VOCs originating from all parts of the body are captured in a person's breath, making the technology applicable to a wide range of cancers."We have plans to expand the screening technology to other cancers, including gastric cancer and intestinal cancer, for which the current detection means - gastroscopy and enteroscopy - are kind of painful, and to pancreatic cancer, which is hard to discover," Wang said. custom bar braceletcustom sports braceletscustom logo wristbandsde securite pour personne ageeembossed wristbandscolorfilled wristbandsembossed printed wristbandsdual layer wristbands
[Photo/VCG] Research among cancer patient volunteers using parasites responsible for malaria is proceeding apace, despite conjecture online of the suspension of the project amid ethical and safety concerns. The project is proceeding normally and the official website will carry any related developments, an expert with the team led by Chen Xiaoping, a researcher at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was quoted by news website Jiemian as saying on Monday. Among the volunteers registered with Guangzhou Fuda Cancer Hospital affiliated with Jinan University, several have been selected by the institute and the project is ongoing, said a staff member of the hospital's customer service. CAS Lamvac Biotech, which was founded by Shenzhen-listed Bluedon Information Security Technologies Co in 2013 and is participating in the research, said on its website on Thursday that the volunteer quota for the research in this round had been met. Clinical research of malaria parasite immunotherapy remains at an early stage and still requires continuous experimentation, the company said. Chen is one of the founders of CAS Lamvac Biotech and serves as its CEO. The issue has garnered strong public attention after Chen made a speech saying that the malaria parasite has become a new force in fighting cancers at a forum late last year. In the research, malaria parasites stimulated the immune system of the cancer patient, which in turn fought off malignant cells. Malaria parasites are injected into the bodies of patients in a precisely controlled manner to minimize risk, and the anti-malarial drug artemisinin is used to control the level of parasites. More than 30 patients have been involved in trials. Of the 10 cases that were under observation in the past year, five have shown progress against cancers, two of which may have been cured, Chen said. In the research among tens of thousands of guinea pigs with cancer over more than a decade, malaria parasites markedly helped extend the lives of the laboratory animals, he said. The treatment remains in an exploratory stage and there are many unknown factors, but the phenomenon is positive, said Zhong Nanshan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a leading member of the research team, who added that individual cases are not enough to reach a conclusion. The team will try to extract matter from malaria parasites for further research, Zhong said. However the research has sparked immense skepticism. Three related research projects registered with the China Clinical Trial Registry are described as observatory research. If patients receive irregular treatment such as injection of malaria parasites, the research should not be listed as observatory. Intervention therapy in the name of observatory research runs contrary to existing rules and regulations, said Shi Jinhai, secretary-general of China Protein Drug Quality Alliance, as quoted by Science and Technology Daily. Also, the pathogens used need further study and improvement before they are applied in clinical experiments to ensure patients' safety, he said.
