SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Thoracic Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1537767
This article is part of the Research TopicPleural and Peritoneal Surface Malignancies: Advances from Bench to BedsideView all 7 articles
Volatile organic compounds in exhaled human breath for the diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma: a meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guizhou Hospital of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550003, China
- 2Department of Oncology, the School of Clinical Medicine, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou 561113, China
- 3ChromX Health Co. Ltd., Greater Bay Area National Center of Nanotechnology Innovation Building, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510555, China
- 4Department of Thoracic Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510080, China
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Objective: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a relatively rare thoracic tumor with a high mortality rate, making early diagnosis and treatment challenging. The present study evaluated the utility of exhaled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in diagnosing MPM. Methods: The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science were systematically searched for clinical trials assessing the diagnostic ability of VOCs for MPM through August 30, 2024. Quality was evaluated using the QUADAS-2 tool. A meta-analysis was performed with a bivariate model for sensitivity and specificity using Stata MP 17.0 software. Results: Eight trials with 859 subjects were included. VOCs were found to have a pooled sensitivity of 0.86 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.75-0.93), a pooled specificity of 0.73 (95% CI 0.58-0.84), and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.88 (95% CI 0.85-0.90) in differentiating MPM patients from healthy controls. In addition VOCs had a pooled sensitivity of 0.89 (95% CI 0.83-0.93), a pooled specificity of 0.79 (95% CI 0.57-0.91), and an AUC of 0.91 (95% CI 0.88-0.93) in differentiating MPM patients from asymptomatic individuals formerly exposed to asbestos (AEx). Conclusions: Although the utility of VOCs in diagnosing MPM varied among clinical trials, VOCs in exhaled human breath may have a potential role in the diagnosis of MPM. Large-scale randomized clinical trials are warranted.
Keywords: Volatile Organic Compounds, malignant pleural mesothelioma, exhaled breath, diagnosis, Meta-analysis
Received: 01 Dec 2024; Accepted: 12 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Hu, Peng, Wei, Fu, Chen and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhenguang Chen, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guizhou Hospital of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guiyang, Guizhou 550003, China
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