A Shanghai hospital is collaborating with a biotechnology company from the United Kingdom to start clinical trials of a method to screen for cancer through breathing tests - which it said has great potential to become an easy, noninvasive and less expensive way for early diagnosis of various cancers.It was the first time that such a technology had come to the Chinese mainland, said Renji Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Chinese partner in the Sino-UK project, during a signing ceremony with Cambridge-based Owlstone Medical on Monday in Shanghai.The British company will provide its patented devices and training, and the Shanghai hospital will provide lab space and a research team.Subjects of the test need only wear a breathalyzer and breathe for several minutes as the device checks for volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. The test samples the whole body, doctors said.VOCs are produced as the end product of metabolic processes within the human body. Underlying changes in metabolic activity can produce VOC patterns characteristic of specific diseases, they said.Owlstone said on its website that the device uses a chemical sensor on a tiny silicon chip.Wang Liwei, director of the lab, said the China-UK team is working on a detailed proposal for the trial, which includes setting standards for the telltale VOCs and the age range of the subjects. The trials are expected to begin in three months."Such trials have been carried out in the UK on 4,000 individuals and achieved an accuracy rate that qualified for clinical application. So it may win approval for use in the UK soon," Wang said.He said the hospital will first carry out trials looking for lung cancer, the most common form of cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths in China. The target for the trials is 70 percent accuracy.With a total of 787,000 newly diagnosed patients every year, lung cancer tops China's malignant tumor incidence and accounts for nearly one-fourth of cancer deaths in the country, according to the National Cancer Center."Such a fast and noninvasive means of screening will reduce the cost of medical treatment for individuals and society as a whole and improve the overall early diagnosis and survival rate of cancer patients," Wang said.Chris Hodkinson, vice-president of business development at Owlstone Medical, said the cooperation will improve the technology and eventually benefit more cancer patients at home and abroad.Experts said VOCs originating from all parts of the body are captured in a person's breath, making the technology applicable to a wide range of cancers."We have plans to expand the screening technology to other cancers, including gastric cancer and intestinal cancer, for which the current detection means - gastroscopy and enteroscopy - are kind of painful, and to pancreatic cancer, which is hard to discover," Wang said. silicone bracelets canadapersonalized ballerina braceletsilicone bracelet maker machinerubber braceletssilicone bracelets no minimum order
A nurse instructs a mother in the process of breast milk donation at the Maternity and Child Care Center in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, last year. The milk is provided to premature and critically ill infants whose mothers cannot produce enough milk. [Photo by CAO JIANXIONG/FOR CHINA DAILY] Mothers encouraged to breast-feed infants for first six months of life Experts have called for legislation to regulate the marketing of breast milk substitutes, a move aimed at improving the breastfeeding rate in China. The appeal was prompted by a new report saying that less than 30 percent of Chinese newborns are exclusively breast-fed for the first six months, compared with 43 percent of mothers worldwide who are breast-feeding exclusively, and 37 percent for lower-to middle-income countries. The report was released recently by the China Development Research Foundation, which surveyed more than 10,000 mothers with babies less than a year old from August 2017 to January 2018. By six months of age, 33.5 percent of babies received breast milk with added baby formula, and 31 percent were fed with breast milk predominantly while taking additional water and juice, according to the survey. Multiple factors are blamed for the stagnant rate of exclusive breast-feeding, including negative or skewed perceptions of breast milk, lack of support from families and public institutions, and poor implementation of maternity leave. However, Fang Jin, deputy secretary-general of the foundation, said there is a significant inverse relationship between misleading advertising of breast milk substitutes and higher breast-feeding levels. It is estimated that infant formula advertisements targeting new mothers and other family members increase the likelihood such products will be used by 30.8 percent, and thus drive down the country's exclusive breast-feeding rate by 11.2 percent, according to the report. With one-fifth of the world's total population, and a shrinking newborn population in recent years, China accounts for one-third of global baby formula consumption, Fang said. He called for regulations to keep a tight rein on the formula industry and protect consumers from exaggerated claims of formula benefits. China launched a regulation in 1995 to oversee marketing activities by infant formula companies. The rules were scrapped in late 2017 following institutional reshuffles, Fang said. Even if the old regulation were in place, it is not legally binding, he said. We are calling for a specific law to govern the marketing of breast milk substitutes. The Advertisement Law, which bans comparing the health benefits of formula with breast milk, is not enforced strictly, according to Fang. Based on survey results, it is almost impossible to reach the target of raising the exclusive breastfeeding rate to 50 percent by 2020 if tougher regulation and enforcement are not in place, he said. The World Health Organization recommends feeding babies with only breast milk for six months, without any infant formula or supplements. The approach is believed to help reduce the incidence of illness and improve overall physical and mental development. The report also calls on medical institutions, especially neonatal professionals, to educate mothers on breast-feeding methods and its advantages, and encourages the setting up of more breast-feeding facilities at workplaces and public spaces. Legislation for maternity leave should also be improved, it said. Li Lin, a resident of Shanghai, gave birth to her first child in December and began feeding her daughter infant formula recently. I felt that using formula is nearly as nutritional as breast milk, she said. My relatives and friends had already sent me tins of baby formula as gifts even before I stopped exclusively breast-feeding. Li added that it was physically demanding to stick to a 100 percent breast-feeding method after her maternity leave ended and she resumed work as an accountant. Another report, commissioned by the China Consumers Association and published on March 6, also shone a light on the mounting pressure on mothers who have to juggle work and breast-feeding. The report, which compares the latest poll results with those from about a decade ago, identifies short maternity leave, busy work schedules and insufficient breast milk as the main culprits for the phenomenon of an increasing number of women switching to a combination of breast milk and infant formula to feed their babies. In most cases, pregnant women in China are entitled to four months of maternity leave, making it difficult to stick to exclusive breast-feeding for six months, as the WHO recommends. Based on the findings, the association has called on local governments and institutions to test flexible working schedules for employees who breast-feed, as part of efforts to upgrade the country's maternity leave.
