health

Detecting Cancer

Israeli scientists develop new method
to detect breast cancer with high accuracy.

Instinct
To
Survive

High-risk cancer
patient does all she
can to ensure her
best life.

Technion researchers imagine a “sniffphone” that will sample breath to detect cancers.

NOCAMELS TEAM

ROBERT ORTLIEB SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

R

She also embraced Beaumont Health’s
ose Brystowski, 61, of Oak Park is
BRCA support group and takes the podi-
the daughter of Holocaust survi-
um to tell her story whenever possible.
vors.
“As an Ashkenazi Jew, I had a 1
As such, she did not have a
ABOVE: Rose
large family tree to look to for Brystowski in front in 40 chance of being BRCA posi-
tive as compared to 1 in 400 for
her family health history.
of her likeness
She did, however, inherit
on the Beaumont the general population,” she said.
“Shortly after my positive test
her parents’ strong spirit and
Hospital outdoor
result, my married daughter
instinct for survival.
mural.
decided she, too, would test
Nine years ago, she was
for the mutation. On the day she was
tested for the BRCA genetic mutation
after her older sister was diagnosed with to learn her result, I told her I was
impressed at how calm she was. She
breast cancer and found to be BRCA
replied, ‘I saw how you handled it, Mom,
positive.
and I’m not scared,’” Brystowski recalled.
Upon learning she, too, was BRCA
Her daughter’s test result came back
positive, Brystowski made a conscious
decision to do all she could to ensure liv- negative.
“Often, we don’t have control of what
ing the best life possible anyway.
happens in life,” Brystowski, said. “But
Learning that the BRCA mutation is
we have control of how we handle it. I
associated with a significantly higher
am so grateful for the opportunity to do
risk of certain cancers, including an
something proactive and empowering. I
80 percent lifetime incidence of breast
feel I was able to change my destiny.” •
cancer, within a few months, Brystowski
consulted with top specialists and had
surgery to remove her ovaries, Fallopian
tubes and breasts.
BEAUMONT MURAL HONORS
“I could have looked at this as though
INSPIRING LOCAL WOMEN
I was cursed but chose to look at this
To honor and celebrate inspirational
as an amazing second chance,” said
local women, Beaumont commissioned
Brystowski, who is one of 24 women
local artist Desiree Kelly to create a
depicted in a new outdoor mural at
unique three-dimensional outdoor
Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. (See
mural that was unveiled May 1 at
box.)
Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak.
She resolved to explore and experi-
ence as much of life as possible.
“We understand women’s health
She attends lectures three days a
needs are special and unique,” said
week. She took ballet lessons.
Carolyn Wilson, Beaumont executive
“It was fun and rewarding but I’m no bal-
vice president and COO. “We are there
lerina,” Brystowski said with a laugh.
for women from the moment they are
She took swim lessons and continues
born to the delivery of their first child
to swim three times a week.
to their end-of-life care. The mural
Active in the Jewish community,
gives us an opportunity to recognize the
Brystowski helped launch a phone mes-
strength and individual journeys of 24
saging program to alert more than 1,200
inspiring local women.”
families of a recent death in the commu-
Replicas of the mural are on display
nity, so that all would have the necessary
at Beaumont’s seven other hospitals.
information to attend the funeral and
visit mourners during the shivah period.

46

May 31 • 2018

jn

I

sraeli scientists at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev and Soroka
University Medical Center in
Beersheba announced in April that
they have developed a new non-
invasive method to detect early breast
cancer more accurately, using com-
mercially available breath and urine
tests.
The researchers used two different
electronic nose gas sensors for breath
and gas-chromatography mass spec-
trometry (GC-MS) for urine analysis
to “isolate relevant data to more accu-
rately identify the breast cancer bio-
marker,” Ben-Gurion University said in
a statement.
According to the findings, the scien-
tists were able to detect breast cancer
“with more than 95 percent average
accuracy” using an inexpensive elec-
tronic nose device (e-nose) that identi-
fies unique breath patterns in affected
women. The analyses of urine samples
yielded an 85 percent average accu-
racy, the researchers said.
Breast cancer is the most com-
monly diagnosed cancer in women,
and affects roughly 1 in 8 women
around the world. Mammographies
are the most common method to
detect breast cancer but the screen-
ings are not 100 percent accurate and
may produce false positive as well as
false negative results, failing to pick up
small tumors in dense breast tissue.
Mammography screenings, according
to the American Cancer Society, do
not detect about 1 in 5 breast cancers.
Other methods to detect cancer-
ous tumors, such as dual-energy
digital mammography and MRIs, can
increase radiation exposure and are
often expensive, while biopsies and
serum biomarker identification pro-
cesses are “invasive, equipment-inten-
sive and require significant expertise”
the researchers indicated.
“Breast cancer survival is strongly
tied to the sensitivity of tumor detec-
tion; accurate methods for detect-
ing smaller, earlier tumors remain
a priority,” said Prof. Yehuda Zeiri, a

member of Ben-Gurion’s Department
of Biomedical Engineering, in a state-
ment.
For the study, breath samples
were collected from 48 breast can-
cer patients and 45 healthy women
who served as a control group. Urine
samples were taken from 37 patients
diagnosed with breast cancer based
on physical or mammography tests
prior to any surgery as well as from 36
healthy women.
“We’ve now shown that inexpensive,
commercial electronic noses are suf-
ficient for classifying cancer patients
at early stages,” Zeiri said.
“With further study, it may also be
possible to analyze exhaled breath and
urine samples to identify other cancer
types as well,” he said.
Developments in breath tests are
not new to cancer detection research.
Last year, NoCamels reported on the
revolutionary research of an inter-
national team of 56 researchers in
five countries led by Israeli Professor
Hossam Haick of the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology that indicated
that different diseases are character-
ized by different “chemical signatures”
identifiable in breath samples.
The study of more than 1,400
patients included 17 different and
unrelated diseases: lung cancer,
colorectal cancer, head and neck can-
cer, ovarian cancer, bladder cancer,
prostate cancer, kidney cancer, stom-
ach cancer, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative
colitis, irritable bowel syndrome,
Parkinson’s disease (two types), mul-
tiple sclerosis, pulmonary hyperten-
sion, preeclampsia and chronic kidney
disease.
With new technology called “artifi-
cially intelligent nanoarray,” developed
by Haick, the researchers were able
to perform fast and inexpensive diag-
nosis and classification of diseases,
based on “smelling” the patient’s
breath and using artificial intelligence
to analyze the data obtained from the
sensors. •