Clinical trial · Observational
Validation of the Diagnostic Accuracy of the Electronic Nose in the Detection of Thyroid Cancer
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
Patients with a suspected thyroid nodule face an invasive and patient unfriendly diagnostic work-up to determine the risk of malignancy. Typically, patients undergo ultrasound of the thyroid gland followed by fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). FNAC has been considered as a gold standard diagnostic procedure in suspected thyroid nodules. Unfortunately, both the negative- and positive predictive value of FNAC is poor, often resulting in the need for a diagnostic hemithyroidectomy for definite diagnosis . Approximately 40-94% of the suspected thyroid nodules appear to be benign after resection and thus exposes patients to unnecessary surgery with unnecessary risks. Therefore, a quick, non-invasive assessment of the risk of malignancy of thyroid nodules is of paramount importance. Such a novel test could fasten the diagnostic process for patients with malignancies and reduce the amount of 'unnecessary' surgeries for benign conditions. A promising development in cancer detection is based on volatile organic compounds (VOCs), gaseous degradation products of biochemical processes detectable in exhaled breath. During pathophysiological processes related to tumor growth, alterations in cell metabolism lead to a shift in the production of VOCs. The VOCs' patterns can be detected by the Aeonose™ through their reaction with the metal-oxide sensors in this device. A pilot study conducted at the Maastricht University Medical Center demonstrated that, by creating an artificial neural network (ANN) from the VOC patterns of numerous patients and their specific histopathological diagnosis, the Aeonose™ has a high diagnostic accuracy to discriminate benign from malignant thyroid nodules. The purpose of this study is to validate the accuracy of the Aeonose™, to prevent unnecessary surgery and to investigate the use of the Aeonose™ as a surveillance tool in the postoperative follow-up of differentiated thyroid cancer. We hypothesize that the high negative predictive value of the pilot study will be confirmed in the validation study and expect that implementation of the Aeonose™ in clinical practice will subsequently reduce the number of unnecessary surgeries below 10% for patients with Bethesda ≥ III nodules and may provide an important role in non-invasive detection of recurrent disease.
Conditions
Conditions (1)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thyroid Neoplasm | Thyroid Gland Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
Interventions
Interventions (1)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Nose | Diagnostic Test | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- label
- Disease Group
- description
- A disease group including patients older than 18 years old with any kind of histopathologically proven malignancy of the thyroid gland (including Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), Follicular thyroid cancer (FTC), Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), and Anaplastic thyroid cancer);
- interventionNames
- Diagnostic Test: Electronic Nose
- label
- Control
- description
- A control group including patients older than 18 years old with any kind of histopathologically proven benign thyroid gland disease (including adenoma, hyperplasia).
- interventionNames
- Diagnostic Test: Electronic Nose
Primary outcomes (5)
- measure
- Sensitivity
- timeFrame
- 4 months
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 18 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * Thyroid nodule requiring additional diagnostic follow-up (TI-RADS/Bethesda) * Patients with thyroid problems requiring surgery (e.g. goiter) * AeonoseTM measurement before undergoing cytological puncture or at least 3 days after cytological puncture pre-operatively. * \> 18 year. * Signed informed consent Exclusion Criteria: * Other underlying malignancy, (less than 5 years ago), basal cell carcinoma not included - Unable to participate due to comorbidities (e.g. COPD) * Not able to understand the information
References
Publications (10)
- BACKGROUNDPellegriti G, Frasca F, Regalbuto C, Squatrito S, Vigneri R. Worldwide increasing incidence of thyroid cancer: update on epidemiology and risk factors. J Cancer Epidemiol. 2013;2013:965212. doi: 10.1155/2013/965212. Epub 2013 May 7. PMID 23737785
- BACKGROUNDTessler FN, Middleton WD, Grant EG. Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System (TI-RADS): A User's Guide. Radiology. 2018 Apr;287(1):29-36. doi: 10.1148/radiol.2017171240. PMID 29558300
- BACKGROUNDTamhane S, Gharib H. Thyroid nodule update on diagnosis and management. Clin Diabetes Endocrinol. 2016 Oct 3;2:17. doi: 10.1186/s40842-016-0035-7. eCollection 2016. PMID 28702251
- BACKGROUNDCibas ES, Ali SZ; NCI Thyroid FNA State of the Science Conference. The Bethesda System For Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology. Am J Clin Pathol. 2009 Nov;132(5):658-65. doi: 10.1309/AJCPPHLWMI3JV4LA. PMID 19846805
- BACKGROUNDHaick H, Broza YY, Mochalski P, Ruzsanyi V, Amann A. Assessment, origin, and implementation of breath volatile cancer markers. Chem Soc Rev. 2014 Mar 7;43(5):1423-49. doi: 10.1039/c3cs60329f. Epub 2013 Dec 4. PMID 24305596
- BACKGROUNDde Lacy Costello B, Amann A, Al-Kateb H, Flynn C, Filipiak W, Khalid T, Osborne D, Ratcliffe NM. A review of the volatiles from the healthy human body. J Breath Res. 2014 Mar;8(1):014001. doi: 10.1088/1752-7155/8/1/014001. Epub 2014 Jan 13. PMID 24421258
- BACKGROUNDGuo L, Wang C, Chi C, Wang X, Liu S, Zhao W, Ke C, Xu G, Li E. Exhaled breath volatile biomarker analysis for thyroid cancer. Transl Res. 2015 Aug;166(2):188-95. doi: 10.1016/j.trsl.2015.01.005. Epub 2015 Jan 20. PMID 25666355
- BACKGROUNDHoftijzer HC, Heemstra KA, Corssmit EP, van der Klaauw AA, Romijn JA, Smit JW. Quality of life in cured patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):200-3. doi: 10.1210/jc.2007-1203. Epub 2007 Oct 23.