A Japanese firm is poised to carry out what it hailed as the world's first experiment to test for cancer using urine samples, which would greatly facilitate screening for the deadly disease.

Engineering and IT conglomerate Hitachi developed the basic technology to detect breast or colon cancer from urine samples two years ago. It will now begin testing the method using some 250 urine samples, to see if samples at room temperature are suitable for analysis, Hitachi spokesman Chiharu Odaira told AFP.