Advances in nano research

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Nanosensor arrays with deep learning for early detection of malignant pulmonary nodules

  • Ruijie Cao (Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Jinshan Branch Respiratory Medicine) ;
  • Hao Xu (Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Jinshan Branch Respiratory Medicine) ;
  • Yuxing Chen (Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Jinshan Branch Respiratory Medicine) ;
  • Zhong Guo (Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Jinshan Branch Respiratory Medicine)
  • Received : 2025.02.28
  • Accepted : 2026.04.14
  • Published : 2026.04.25
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Abstract

The screening of malignant pulmonary nodules is important in order to enhance the survival rates of the patients having lung cancer. Traditional methods of diagnosis like computed tomography (CT) scans and biopsy procedures are usually challenged in terms of sensitivity, specificity and late diagnosis. This paper suggests an interdisciplinary approach that would involve both nanosensor arrays and deep learning into the prevention and classification of malignant pulmonary nodules at an early stage. The nanosensor arrays will have the ability to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and molecular biomarkers of lung cancer in breath samples. These sensor reactions yield the high-dimensional signal patterns which are analyzed by a deep learning model to identify the salient nodules as benign or malignant. A training and evaluation model based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained and tested on a dataset of sensor responses obtained on clinical breath samples. Preprocessing of data and feature normalization was done in order to improve signal quality and minimize noise. Cross-validation method was used to test the proposed system to guarantee the presence of robustness and reliability. The experimental findings show that the combined nanosensor deep learning system had an overall detection accuracy of 94.3 where the sensitivity was 92.1 and the specificity was 95.6 in classifying between malignant pulmonary nodules and benign conditions. The results demonstrate that the integration of nanosensors arrays and state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms can greatly increase the early detection of lung cancer. A non-invasive, fast, and cost-effective method can potentially assist in clinical decision-making and screening programs, which eventually would allow making administration of patients earlier and achieving better results. More extensive clinical studies are advised to support and streamline the suggested system to be used in medical practice.

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References

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