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Can dogs smell cancer?

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Yes, dogs can smell cancer. They can even smell it “in situ”, or at stage zero. Let's take a closer look at why dogs are even interested in smelling cancer in the first place. We provided for the dog, and the dog used his nose to help provide for, and protect, us. read more

A British organization, Medical Detection Dogs, has eight dogs sniff out 3,000 urine samples from National Health Service patients to see whether they can discern who has cancer and who doesn't. Claire Guest is the CEO of Medical Detection Dogs. read more

If dogs can recognize such odors, the implications for medicine could be enormous. Those noses might provide early detection that science cannot yet achieve. For a disease like prostate cancer, for instance, current detection through blood tests can be notoriously inaccurate. read more

Date: January 6, 2006 Source: SAGE Publications Summary: In a society where lung and breast cancers are leading causes of cancer death worldwide, early detection of the disease is highly desirable. read more

In Berlin, a group of researchers trained some dogs to detect the presence of various types of cancer, including ovarian cancer, bowel cancer (which apparently smells different from both endometrial cancer and cervical cancer), as well as bladder cancer, skin cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer. read more

Training dogs to smell cancer is done in the same way that bomb and narcotics dogs are trained, pairing the target odor with a high value reward. (Kind of like the dog smelling the sick bird, and then getting to eat it). read more

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