A Recent study published in Gut Biomedical Journal reports that dogs can be trained to "sniff" out cancer from tissues and exhaled breath. Previous studies have reported that dogs can smell melanoma, bladder, lung, breast and ovarian cancer. This study: Full Text of Study illustrates that dogs can pick up on the apparently distinctive smell of colon cancer in watery stools and in breath. Interestingly, canine scent detection accuracy is highest for early stage cancer detection (Sonoda et al, 2011).Researchers in Chiba Japan trained an 8-year old female black Lab to correctly distinguish the breath of patients with oesophageal cancer from the breath of control patients. Then, researchers trained lab to distinguish between different kinds of cancer by smelling breath in one bag and then sitting in front of a bag on the floor with a known type of cancer to indicate a "match." A Dog handler rewarded the lab with tennis ball play time each time she correctly identified a cancer sample. After the training was complete, they tested the dog's accuracy in identifying the smell of colorectal cancer in breath and stools.
The amazing part? Even though the study was double blind (meaning neither the researchers, dog handlers, or the dog knew which samples contained breath or stools from cancer patients and which did not), the dog diagnosed cancer with .97 sensitivity in watery stools and .91 sensitivity in breath samples. This means the dog can correctly diagnose 97 out of 100 cases of cancer by smelling stools. The dog's specificity was .99 for both breath and stools. This means that out of 100 samples from individuals who do not have cancer, the dog will correctly identify 99 of them as cancer free (Sonoda et al, 2011).
Another interesting thing to note: Current smoking patterns, benign colorectal polyps, or abnormal tissue growths, and inflammation did not deter the dog's acute sense of smell in the least (Sonoda et al, 2011).
The idea of training dogs to sniff cancer in body fluid samples from patients may have interesting clinical potential, but training this Labrador required extensive time and money. If researchers could identify what exactly this dog is smelling in the samples, they might be able to develop a less expensive chemical analysis test.
What other things could this dog's nose teach us?
Here is the article: http://www.npr.org/dogs
I found this article to be extremely interesting, yet surprisingly hard to believe. I mean, the facts and statistics are there so I cannot argue with what the results show, but it just shocks me that we have the capability to train dogs to detect something as disastrous as cancer. I think it is the accuracy with which this canine performed that shocked me the most. We hear all the time about failed biopsy tests, or false negatives in patients that are actually cancer positive. I think it's really interesting that a dog has just as much, or possibly even more accuracy than some of our most advanced medical technologies of today.
ReplyDeleteI also think that this proves the importance of thinking outside the box when it comes to addressing issues of public health and how to resolve some of the major problems. As we said in class, there is no ONE solution for the problems facing the health world of today. Therefore, we must be constantly thinking about other ways to address these issues. Even if that means training dogs to sniff out deadly diseases.
I guess I was kind of skeptical of this study at first because my mind was so set on the traditional techniques and technology used to do this job today. As I think about it more though, I'd say that this is exactly the problem. We often place ourselves in a certain mindset, and rarely do we vary from that mindset. I think that branching away from these traditions can lead to greater discoveries.
This discovery may turn out to be nothing substantial, but the point is, it has potential. Without new minds thinking outside the box, we can have a better chance at new and potentially life-changing discoveries.
As public health students, we should find this article promising. It proves that there is so much more out there to unwrap if we just search for it. No idea or possible solution should be viewed as too absurd or unrealistic because often, those ideas turn into something successful. I am excited to hear where this research goes in the future.