‘Sniff-cam’ to detect disease by analyzing bad breath

Having bad breath can mean someone ate a smelly lunch, but it could indicate that the person is sick. Various scent compounds have been linked to illnesses such as diabetes, lung cancer and Parkinson’s disease, leading scientists to develop technology that measures these substances. However, the challenge is creating instrumentation that can detect low, diagnostic levels of these disease biomarkers. Now, scientists report a highly sensitive ‘sniff-cam’ that fits the bill.