Breath test shows promise against cancer: Researcher hopes to use DNA technique to detect tumor warning signs.

Byline: Cathleen F. Crowley

May 16--ALBANY -- Police officers can test your breath for alcohol, but Dr. Simon Spivack wants to test your breath for cancer.

Spivack, a researcher at the state Health Department's Wadsworth Laboratory and a pulmonologist at Albany Medical College, is investigating a method to detect lung cancer or a predisposition for lung cancer by analyzing DNA collected from test subjects' exhaled breath.

His team of scientists is only the second in the world to find and study DNA collected in this way and the first to study it for signs of cancer. Spivack recently presented his work to the 2007 annual meeting of the American …