Zhang J, et al. - Researchers examined whether surgical aerosol could help in the identification of lung cancer and adjacent normal tissue in surgery. They performed in vitro experiments in which cutting of tissue sample using a standard electrosurgery handpiece lead to the release of the surgical aerosol. Surgical smoke was dissolved in methanol using negative-pressure suction and was then taken to the neutral sprayer for analysis. Using partial least squares (PLS) analysis in MatLab 2011, they performed multivariate analysis. From 26 patient, 208 surgical aerosol database entries were obtained. They noted overexpression of phosphatidylserine (34:2), phosphatidylcholine (36:4), and triacylglycerol (46:2), while a decrease in phosphatidylcholine (34:3) in the cancerous aerosol. Clear differences in the surgical aerosol data of lung cancer vs normal were noted on coupling PLS and extractiveelectrospray-ionization mass–spectrometry analysis. Outcomes thereby suggest the possible presence of biomarkers in the surgical aerosol that might assist in identification of lung cancer and normal tissue.