With its 200 million olfactory cells, the dog’s nose is able to detect extremely volatile odors. This unusual sense of smell is already used by rescuers to search for missing persons or by customs officials to search for drugs. But it was to a completely different research that two dogs were trained by the team of Dr Luigi Taverna, head of the urology department at Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan. These two female German Shepherds were simply trained to sniff urine samples for specific volatile organic compounds from the Prostate cancer.
Between 96% and 100% success
After five months of training, Zoe and Liu sniffed urine samples from 902 participants, including 362 men with prostate cancer, at various stages of the disease, and 540 women and men with other cancers, d various ailments or in good health.
The two bitches managed to detect respectively 100% and 99% of the positive samples, and to eliminate 98% and 96% of the negative samples. None of the team members knew what the positive samples were, except for the chief veterinarian, who observed the experiment behind glass outside the chamber.
Decrease the number of unnecessary biopsies
“This type of diagnosis is reproducible, inexpensive and non-invasive,” said Dr. Taverna at the Annual Meeting of the American Urological Association which was held earlier this week in Orlando (Florida). “This type of diagnosis could make it possible to reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies to better focus on patients at risk”.
This is not the first time that the smell of dogs has been used in oncology research. Three years ago, German researchers discovered that dogs could detect the presence of lung cancer by sniffing the breath of people with this disease. More recently, British researchers found that dogs trained to sniff blood sugar could prevent diabetics of an upcoming hypoglycaemic attack.
