Demonstrating the Efficacy of N-NOSE in Detecting Hematological Malignancies was published in an international academic journal

2025.03.31

The original research article demonstrating the efficacy of N-NOSE in detecting blood cancers (also known as hematological malignancies) has been published in the international journal Hematological Oncology, (published date: Mar.29th, 2025). This clinical research was jointly conducted by our company with Professor Shingen Nakamura at Department of Community Medicine and Medical Science, Tokushima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

In comparison with the most common six malignant solid tumors like gastric, lung, colorectal, breast, cervical, and prostate cancers, the new cases and the mortality of hematological malignancies are relatively low in Japanese population: leukemia (incidence rate, 11.3 per 100,000; mortality rate, 8.1 per 100,000), multiple myeloma (incidence rate, 5.8 per 100,000; mortality rate, 3.5 per 100,000), malignant lymphoma (incidence rate, 28.5 per 100,000; mortality rate, 11.7 per 100,000) (See National Cancer Center Japan. Cancer Registry and Statistics.  Accessed on March 24, 2025). In addition to a routine blood test, a highly invasive needle biopsy of the patients’ bone marrow is also performed to diagnose hematological malignancies. Therefore, minimally invasive, cost-effective, affordable, and highly accurate cancer screening methods are urgently required for detecting hematological malignancies.

In this clinical study, we assessed the performance of N-NOSE in patients with various hematological malignancies at diagnosis and during treatment. This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Tokushima University Ethics Committee (Approval number 3045-1, 3045-4). Urine samples were collected from 30 healthy individuals and 89 patients with hematological malignancies. Based on the optimal cut-off values in detecting hematological malignancies, N-NOSE demonstrated high positivity rates in treatment-naïve patients: leukemia and multiple myeloma were very high (over 90%), whereas malignant lymphoma was slightly lower than 80%. In the small subset of malignant lymphoma patients who tested N-NOSE-negative, confounding factors included steroid administration and hemodialysis. Importantly, no significant correlation emerged between N-NOSE index values and patients’ baseline characteristics or comorbidities other than the presence of cancer. Moreover, in all 32 patients who achieved clinically completed/partial response following chemotherapy, the N-NOSE index declined, reflecting their disease status. These findings highlight N-NOSE’s strong potential as a sensitive, non-invasive screening tool for hematological malignancies and support its use in initial detection and monitoring of therapeutic response.

Our N-NOSE nematode cancer test was commercialized in January 2020, and to date, this method has gained significant attention, with over 800,000 individuals having undergone the cancer test in Japan. The nematode-based cancer-specific odor detection method has already been reproduced by third-party: prestigious research institutions in the U.S. and Italy, and recently, Slovakian research group has also been published their clinical data in an academic journal.

[Title]

Detection of Hematological Malignancies Using N-NOSE (Nematode-NOSE)

[Authors]

Shingen Nakamura*, Hideyuki Hatakeyama, Sumiko Yoshida, Umbhorn Ungkulpasvich, Takaaki Hirotsu, Eric di Luccio, and Masahiro Abe

[Journal]

Hematological Oncology

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