ABSTRACT
For centuries, the smell of breath has been associated with certain diseases. This has attracted worldwide interest on using breath analysis for disease diagnosis. The possibility of using breath analysis to improve the management of cancer has led to the identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) linked to cancer. It could be assumed that the proof of concept has been more or less established. However, despite the vast amount of work on this subject, the study of breath has not made it into clinical practice yet. The reasons behind this are multiple and range from identifying the best sampling method and the origin of these VOCs, all the way to instrumentation and data analysis standardization. Further work on these issues will need to be followed with multicenter studies to confirm that breath analysis is not only a potential approach to follow in clinical practice but rather, a further robust methodology made available to clinicians in order to improve the care of patients with cancer.
