“This article was re-published with permission from NoCamels.com – Israeli Innovation News.

Israeli scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba announced that they have developed a new non-invasive method to detect early breast cancer more accurately, using commercially available breath and urine tests.

The researchers used two different electronic nose gas sensors for breath, and gas-chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for urine analysis to “isolate relevant data to more accurately identify breast cancer biomarker,” Ben-Gurion University said in a statement.

According to the findings, published in the May 2018 edition of Computers in Biology and Medicine, the scientists were able to detect breast cancer “with more than 95 percent average accuracy” using an inexpensive electronic nose device (e-nose) that identifies unique breath patterns in affected women. The analyses of urine samples yielded an 85 percent average accuracy, the researchers said.

Breast cancer is the most commonly 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 screenings 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.