Could a breath test detect blood cancer?
A breath test – like the ones used by police to check for drink-driving – could one day help doctors spot blood cancer more easily.
Early-stage research led by a team at Barts Health found that people with blood cancer breathe out different chemicals compared to healthy people.
Using a device called Breath Biopsy, researchers tested the breath of 46 patients with blood cancer and 28 people without. They found clear differences between the two groups.
Dr John Riches, consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and researcher at Queen Mary University of London, said: “In the future, doctors might be able to do a quick breath test in the clinic and get the results in seconds."
This is the first time a breath test like this has shown promise for picking up signs of blood cancer, which is usually diagnosed using blood tests, scans or biopsies.
Blood cancer is the UK’s third deadliest cancer, affecting more than 40,000 people each year – including over 500 children.
The research team hopes this new test could make it quicker and easier to spot the disease, especially in GP surgeries and clinics without specialist equipment.
Dr Riches added: "The next steps will be to understand more about how the cancer cells are producing the chemicals we detected in patients’ breath – and to develop this test in a larger number of patients with lymphoma."
Barts Health is proud to be recognised as a national Centre of Excellence for blood cancer, offering specialist care and leading research to improve outcomes for patients.
This story was featured in The Sun on 23 July 2025.
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