Urinary volatiles and chemical characterisation for the non-invasive detection of prostate and bladder cancers

Abstract

Bladder cancer (BCa) and prostate cancer (PCa) are some of the most common cancers in the world. In both BCa and PCa, the diagnosis is often confirmed with an invasive technique that carries a risk to the patient. Consequently, a non-invasive diagnostic approach would be medically desirable and beneficial to the patient. The use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for disease diagnosis, including cancer, is a promising research area that could support the diagnosis process. In this study, we investigated the urinary VOC profiles in BCa, PCa patients and non-cancerous controls by using gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) and gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS) to analyse patient samples. GC-IMS separated BCa from PCa (area under the curve: AUC: 0.97 (0.93–1.00)), BCa vs. non-cancerous (AUC: 0.95 (0.90–0.99)) and PCa vs. non-cancerous (AUC: 0.89 (0.83–0.94)) whereas GC-TOF-MS differentiated BCa from PCa (AUC: 0.84 (0.73–0.93)), BCa vs. non-cancerous (AUC: 0.81 (0.70–0.90)) and PCa vs. non-cancerous (AUC: 0.94 (0.90–0.97)). According to our study, a total of 34 biomarkers were found using GC-TOF-MS data, of which 13 VOCs were associated with BCa, seven were associated with PCa, and 14 VOCs were found in the comparison of BCa and PCa.