Saturday, September 05, 2009 TEL AVIV: The exhaled breath from patients with lung cancer has distinct characteristics that allow those with the disease to be identified by an "electronic nose," according to a report in the first issue for June 2005 of the American Thoracic Society's peer-reviewed American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Researchers reported the results of measuring exhaled breath of 14 individuals with bronchogenic carcinoma and 45 control subjects without cancer to develop the screening capability. The authors said that they hypothesized that an "electronic nose" would detect lung cancer on the basis of complex "smellprints" of numerous volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath from individuals with lung cancer as compared with either other non-cancerous lung disease or healthy controls. According to the authors, analysis of results from the "electronic nose" demonstrated its ability to discriminate between samples from lung cancer patients and those from other groups during the initial discovery and training phase of the study. Next, the researchers tested the "electronic nose" on 14 lung cancer cases, and 62 without the disease. Of the 14 cancer patients, 10 had a positive exhaled breath test, and 4 had a negative. Of the 62 non-cancerous patients, 57 had a negative exhaled breath test and 5 had a positive. They said that in this population with a lung cancer prevalence of 18 percent, positive and negative predictive values were slightly over 66 percent and approximately 92 percent, respectively. The researchers noted that their results prove the feasibility of the concept of using the "electronic nose" to detect and manage lung cancer. However, further study is needed to understand the optimal strategies for using it in population-based screening.
Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo...
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