{"id":925185,"date":"2026-10-08T10:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T10:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/925185\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T10:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T10:44:10","slug":"as-easy-as-breathing-new-study-to-find-out-if-breast-cancer-can-be-detected-early-in-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/925185\/","title":{"rendered":"As easy as breathing: New study to find out if breast cancer can be detected early in breath"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

The IWK has become the second partner in a study aiming to detect breast cancer earlier, one exhale at a time.<\/p>\n

Using a patient’s breath, this non-invasive test could be used in tandem with mammograms to help streamline additional screening methods for the disease.<\/p>\n

The IWK’s Breast Health Research Unit (BHRU) partnered with Breathe BioMedical, a New Brunswick company developing technology to analyze breath for early disease detection.<\/p>\n

When a person exhales, compounds created in the body are released. This test, which involves breathing into a tube, collects these compounds and identifies patterns found in patients with breast cancer. It then compares the patterns with compounds found in people without the disease.<\/p>\n

“If we can identify a tool that is non-invasive, that is accurate and helps detect breast cancer early, well then the breast cancer potentially could be more treatable,” said co-director of the BHRU, Dr. Ashley Drohan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eligible patients are between 40 and 70 years of age and will have undergone a routine biopsy of their breast. They will be identified by the radiologists at the time of their breast imaging.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The study, using Breathe BioMedical technology, will be run by Dr. Gregory Knapp and Dr. Zina Kellow in Halifax. (Mark Crosby\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Breathe BioMedical first began working on breath-test technology in 2018 initially looking at a form of lung cancer. It then pivoted to breast cancer and conducted a pilot study between 2018 and 2023 in Saint John, New Brunswick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This preliminary pilot demonstrated an 88 per cent overall accuracy rate from a pool of around 111 total patients, made up of those with the disease and without who were used as a control.<\/p>\n

CEO Bill Dawes, says this current study will use the IWK and a location in Moncton through the Vitalit\u00e9 Health Network.<\/p>\n

They hope to have approximately 800 participants, with half being the control group and half with breast cancer.<\/p>\n

When breath samples are collected they will be sent away to Moncton for testing. The company plans to expand to other sites before the end of the decade to get a broader representation of women of different backgrounds to create a more diverse machine learning model.<\/p>\n

Dawes says he hopes this breath test becomes a tool to help women with dense breast tissue detect the disease sooner. Dense breast tissue can obscure cancer in a mammogram.<\/p>\n

“Imagine the potential where someday we have a simple, non-invasive test for breast cancer detection,”\u00a0said Dawes.<\/p>\n

“That’s what we’re trying to create at Breathe BioMedical.”<\/p>\n

MORE TOP STORIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84],"class_list":["post-925185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}