The ultimate objective of this research was to develop a low cost, reliable system that
would lead to early detection of lung cancer. Tests involved the quantitation of gaseous
metabolic emissions from immortalized lung cancer cell lines in order to correlate the
chemical markers to be of cancerous origin. The specific aims of the project were the
study of gas emissions in selected cancer cell lines and identification of volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) in them.
Disadvantages of earlier studies were that the measurements were not real time or state
specific so that molecular identification was often inconclusive. Furthermore the methods
of study used in the past were not quantitative, which limited their practicality for
medical applications. We felt the need to prove or disprove these earlier results using a
new technique.
The method we proposed is different and unique when compared to previous methods
because cell lines have not been studied extensively for cancer markers. We have studied
cancer cell lines which are adherent, immortalized cultures originating from primary
tumors obtained from patients with no prior treatment for lung cancer.
We have used an alternative method for the spectrometric analysis and quantitation of the
selected chemical markers. The pre-concentration method involved a Purge and Trap
unit with a thermal desorber where the vapor concentration was enhanced. The
concentrated head space gases were analyzed using a Gas Chromatograph ?? Mass
Spectrometer setup. This setup eliminated the bulky apparatus used in earlier studies. It is
simpler in design and more comprehensive so that external factors such as patient??s diet,
habitat and lifestyle do not contribute to our study of recognition of cancer markers.
Based on the results obtained in the above experiments, a more comprehensive,
inexpensive study of lung cancer related markers could be made.
The first section, after giving an introduction to lung cancer, goes on to explain the
background work done by other researchers on cancer. The third section gives a detailed
explanation of the experimental setup. This is followed by all the tests conducted with
corresponding results. The final section deals with the conclusions drawn from all
experiments.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/2423 |
| Date | 29 August 2005 |
| Creators | Maroly, Anupam |
| Contributors | Bevan, John W., Coté, Gerard L. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 817709 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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