Metabolomics analysis of exhaled breath condensate for discrimination between lung cancer patients and risk factor individuals

The search for new clinical tests aimed at diagnosing chronic respiratory diseases is a current research line motivated by the lack of efficient screening tools and the severity of some of these pathologies. Alternative biological samples can open the door to new screening tools. A promising biofluid that is rarely used for diagnostic purposes is exhaled breath condensate (EBC), the composition of which has been inadequately studied. In this research, untargeted analysis of EBC using gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry has been applied to a cohort of patients with lung cancer (n = 48), risk factor individuals (active smokers and ex-smokers, n = 130) and control healthy individuals (non-smokers without respiratory diseases, n = 61). An identical protocol was applied to the two EBC fractions provided by the sampling device (upper and central airways and distal airway) from each individual, which allowed the compositional differences between the two EBC fractions to be detected. Tentative compounds that contribute to discrimination between the three groups were identified, and a relevant role for lipids such as monoacylglycerols and squalene was found. These results could support the ability of metabolomics to go inside the study of lung cancer.