Cancer Biomarkers-Sniffing Dogs
According to scientists at the Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo, California, dogs can better detect lung and breast cancers.
The dogs – Labradors and Portuguese water dogs – have been trained to identify chemical markers such as alkanes and benzene derivatives in the exhaled breath of cancer patients.
The researchers, who hope to repeat their findings with a larger study, believe dogs could be used instead of mammograms and CT scans to improve diagnosis rates. Dr Michael McCulloch, of the Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo, California, and colleagues took breath samples from 55 lung cancer patients, 31 breast cancer patients and 83 healthy volunteers.
The dogs correctly detected 99 per cent of the lung cancer samples and 88 per cent of the breath from breast cancer sufferers.
Dr McCulloch told the Integrative Cancer Therapies journal: “In parts of the world where there isn’t a large medical budget we believe that the dogs could be used as kind of a pre-screening to help determine who would most benefit from more expensive high-tech testing.”
Hmn…I am a bit skeptic. Would you trust a dog to diagnose you of cancer?
Source: Telegraph UK
Tags: cancer, cancer-biomarkers, dogsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: on breast cancer, on cancer diagnostics, on lung cancer
2 opinions for Cancer Biomarkers-Sniffing Dogs
Sonnie Smith
Oct 3, 2007 at 2:00 am
Well I am a believer in the Cancer Sniffing Dogs ability!!!! I am a 1 year Breast Cancer Survivor, who has a Jack Russell and she knew something was wrong with my right breast. She would smell it and she was very careful not to touch that area when I held her. She was also very loving and gentle to me. So, I believe we have to keep an open mind; because you never know.
Cloning, Cancer-Sniffing Dog
May 23, 2008 at 4:08 pm
[…] time I read about cancer-sniffing dogs, though a bit skeptic — I knew it wasn’t going to stop […]
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