DOGS ARE ABLE TO SMELL CANCER

In times gone by, doctors could diagnose some diseases by smell. Modern technology helped make such skills unnecessary. However, dogs have about l00,000 times more sensitive a nose than humans. Researchers in Britain now have trained dogs to detect the presence of bladder cancer by smelling human urine. In one case, the dog correctly detected cancer in one patient that medical tests had shown was cancer-free, thus saving that person's life. According to an article published in the British Medical Journal, other researchers are extending this finding to other types of cancer.

Canine accuracy on these tests is not yet up to a level necessary for applied work in the clinic, but the results are encouraging. If the method can be improved, it will mean less expensive and less intrusive tests for cancer detection. A dog can apparently differentiate between a benign and a malignant tumor, something that no medical test, with the exception of a biopsy, can duplicate.