Breath Analysis as an Additional Test for Colorectal Cancer Screening to Reduce the Number of Unnecessary Colonoscopies

In the past decade, the demand for colonoscopy procedures has increased significantly since the introduction of population-based colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in many western countries. Post-polypectomy surveillance will increase the number of colonoscopy procedures conducted each year even further. The invasive nature of colonoscopy and the associated health-care costs warrant the development of a new non-invasive test to reduce the number of unnecessary colonoscopies.
These days, many countries use a non-invasive fecal test for CRC screening which is easy to perform at home, but test characteristics such as sensitivity and specificity are suboptimal. Multiple studies have already shown that volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis has a high diagnostic accuracy for CRC and Advanced Adenomas. An additional VOC analysis, for example through breath testing, in patients with a positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT) may reduce the number of unnecessary colonoscopies.
The aim of this study is to validate the diagnostic accuracy of the AeonoseTM to distinguish patients with CRC from healthy controls, and to assess reproducibility of test results.