title: Ultrasensitive silicon nanowire for real-world gas sensing: noninvasive diagnosis of cancer from breath volatolome.
abstract: We report on an ultrasensitive, molecularly modified silicon nanowire field effect transistor that brings together the lock-and-key and cross-reactive sensing worlds for the diagnosis of (gastric) cancer from exhaled volatolome. The sensor is able to selectively detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are linked with gastric cancer conditions in exhaled breath and to discriminate them from environmental VOCs that exist in exhaled breath samples but do not relate to the gastric cancer per se. Using breath samples collected from actual patients with gastric cancer and from volunteers who do not have cancer, blind analysis validated the ability of the reported sensor to discriminate between gastric cancer and control conditions with >85% accuracy, irrespective of important confounding factors such as tobacco consumption and gender. The reported sensing approach paves the way to use the power of silicon nanowires for simple, inexpensive, portable, and noninvasive diagnosis of cancer and other disease conditions.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Chemical Engineering and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology , Haifa 3200003, Israel.
authors.forename: Nisreen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shehada
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Brönstrup
authors.forename: Konrads
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Funka
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Christiansen
authors.forename: Marcis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leja
authors.forename: Hossam
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haick
mesh_terms: D001944:Breath Tests; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D053770:Nanowires; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry*; D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D055549:Volatile Organic Compounds; D012825:Silicon
keywords: Silicon nanowire; breath; cancer; diagnosis; field effect transistor; volatile organic compound; volatolome