American medical device maker Ancon Medical Inc., recently developed an innovative new breath screening technology that allows clinicians to easily detect biomarkers for dangerous and deadly diseases at their earliest stages. The Nanoparticle Biomarker Tagging (NBT) technology has potential benefits in multiple fields and purposes such as conducting mass screenings for Tuberculosis and Ebola and in simplifying the testing methods for lung cancer, particularly in remote and local healthcare facilities.

In remote and underdeveloped areas or in the most sophisticated clinics, Ancon believes that with an NBT-equipped breath test it is now possible to achieve more efficient screening to improve effectiveness, delivery, results and associated costs of healthcare in all its aspects. Since the NBT breath test is a simple and non-invasive procedure, the technology can be accessible to a much larger segment of the population.

“No matter what the disease, an early diagnosis will always give medical professionals the advantage of a head start in treatment, isolation and prevention. The difference can be measured in better treatment, lower cost and most importantly, saved lives. With NBT, Ancon Medical can give doctors, healthcare providers, aid workers and even volunteers the head start they need to start life-saving treatment,” explained Wesley Baker, president of Ancon Medical, in a press release.

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NBT is sensitive enough to detect controlled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and DNA-protein biomarkers that are exhaled in the breath in lower concentrations, and has been demonstrated to be superior to similar screening technologies.

Biomarkers are small molecules that serve as chemical “signatures” for diseases; currently, researchers already know the signature for more than 400 diseases such as butylated hydroxytoluene – characteristic of the presence of lung cancer.

Lung cancer has a very low survival rate, however, through this technology, biomarkers can be identified much earlier and treatment outcomes can be vastly improved.

“Studies show that 57 percent of patients can survive longer than five years if Lung Cancer treatment is begun early. Otherwise, the survival rate is only nine percent. But NBT can find the biomarker early enough to begin treatment, making lung cancer a prime example of the enormous potential health benefits of the technology we’ve developed at Ancon Medical,” Baker noted.

With more research and development, NBT technology devices could be sold at less than $29,000 each; this is an affordable option for a wide range of healthcare and emergency scenarios besides lung cancer such as Ebola, as already mentioned.