Determination of volatile organic compounds in SW620 colorectal cancer cells and tumor-bearing mice.

•Volatile organic compounds released by the human body have great potential in diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring for colorectal cancer.•Cancer is a metabolic disease in which metabolic changes are used to maintain a high rate of proliferation and resistance to cell death.•We analyze not only the VOCs in model organism blood samples but also the VOCs in the headspace of colorectal cancer cell lines.