Odours from skin can actually identify certain types of skin cancer, according to new research from the Monell Centre in the US and presented at the 236th meeting of the American Chemical Society, which may lead to methods of simply screening for early diagnoses of skin cancers.

19 September, 2008 – 14:18

Human skin produces numerous airborne chemical molecules known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, many of which are odorous. In the study presented at the ACS, the researchers obtained VOC profiles from basal cell carcinoma sites in eleven patients and compared them to profiles from similar skin sites in eleven healthy people.

Both profiles contained the same array of chemicals; the difference involved the amounts of specific chemicals – some were increased and others decreased in samples from basal cell carcinoma sites.