Lasers detct Disease In Patient Breath

I hope the public get to use this technology and not just the dreaded insurance companies...

clipped from dsc.discovery.com Lasers Detect Disease in Patient Breath Feb. 22, 2008 -- Diagnosing life threatening diseases could soon be as easy as breathing. Researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado are now using lasers to detect specific chemical compounds in the breath of patients with cancer, asthma and diabetes. The technique, once perfected and commercialized, could save patients and insurance companies thousands of dollars and make disease diagnosis and monitoring faster and more efficient. "We hope that the technology will develop to be a very useful tool for preventive medicine," said Jun Ye, a study author and a physics professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "It can provide an early warning system to potential patients." In a much simplified version of the technique, the researchers simply look and see what colour the breath is after interacting with the comb and then diagnose a condition based on the colour.