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 in the search for missing persons, explosives or drugs. Dogs could use their sense of smell for health and become cancer scouts.
Researchers from the Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan (Italy) trained two female German Shepherds, already explosive sniffers, for 5 months to identify volatile organic compounds specific to prostate cancer and present in urine samples.
The researchers then tested the bitches to test urine samples from 362 patients with prostate cancer at various stages (from low risk to metastatic) all diagnosed, as well as those from ‘a control group of 540 healthy people.
Effective screening
The bitches were extremely successful. They were able to detect 100% and 99% of positive samples, respectively, and remove 98% and 96% of negative samples.
“This type of diagnosis is reproducible, inexpensive and non-invasive,” said Dr Luigi Taverna, head of the urology department at Humanitas Research Hospital. “This type of diagnosis could make it possible to reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies to better focus on patients at risk,” he concludes.
The smell of dogs has already been proven
This study presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando (United States) confirms the results of previous research and experiments.
In 2011, German researchers discovered that dogs could tell for the presence of lung cancer by sniffing the breath of people with the disease. More recently, in 2015, a team from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) trained a male German Shepherd, Frankie capable of detecting thyroid cancer.
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