Sensors for lung cancer diagnosis

The positive outcome of lung cancer treatment is strongly related to the earliness of the diagnosis. Thus, there is a strong requirement for technologies that could provide an early detection of cancer. The concept of early diagnosis is immediately extended to large population screening, and then, it is strongly related to non-invasiveness and low cost. Sensor technology takes advantage of the microelectronics revolution, and then, it promises to develop devices sufficiently sensitive to detect lung cancer biomarkers. A number of biosensors for the detection of cancer-related proteins have been demonstrated in recent years. At the same time, the interest is growing towards the analysis of volatile metabolites that could be measured directly from the breath. In this paper, a review of the state-of-the-art of biosensors and volatile compound sensors is presented.