In the early stages, cancers of the upper gastrointestinal tract exhibit symptoms that are identical to benign conditions. Because there is currently no low-cost, non-invasive screening test for general practitioners to utilize with patients presenting these symptoms, many patients with early-stage cancer are not detected early enough, a high proportion are diagnosed only at later stages where mortality rates are high, and intervention is often severe.

Research focused on a breath-based screening test using direct mass spectrometry looks a promising alternative. In this webinar, we will describe:

• Why early detection of gastro-esophageal cancers is so challenging,
• Research utilizing selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) that has potential screening applications, and
• Future external validation work that will utilize thermal desorption-SIFT-MS.