Research says Dogs really can smell Cancer


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A new study adds to the body of research suggesting that "man?s best friend" may actually be able to smell cancer.

Researchers in Germany found that dogs were able to pick up on the scent of organic compounds linked to the presence of lung cancer in the human body, and that their keen sense of smell may be useful for the early detection of the disease.

Four family dogs ? two German shepherds, one Australian shepherd and one Labrador retriever ? smelled test tubes containing breath samples of 220 patients, both those with lung cancer and those without it. The dogs were trained to lie down in front of the test tubes where they smelled lung cancer and touch the vial with their noses. According to the study, the dogs successfully identified lung cancer in 71 out of 100 patients with the disease.

And that?s not all. Researchers also tested patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. ?COPD is quite common in patients with lung cancer and we were not sure if the dogs could tell the difference between both diseases,? explains Enole Boedeker, an author on the study who practices general thoracic surgery in Stuttgart, Germany. ?The dogs could recognize the cancer sample as easily as between the breath samples of the healthy study participants,? Boedeker says. The study is published in the European Respiratory Journal. :dog:

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Interesting, thanks for posting this.

I played golf one day with an older couple who had a dog with them. Got to talking with them and apparently the wife suffers from seizures and the dog can identify it before it happens. The husband said their dog has saved his wife's life multiple times on the golf course - thought that was pretty awesome.

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That dogs could smell cancer was first suspected a few years ago and some US centers have used it in pilot projects.

My brother in law is involved in training helper dogs and quite a few are for seizure patients. They speculate that the dog is again smelling a chemical signal but are at a loss as to what it is.

The old adage of a dog being a giant nose with 4 feet and a happy tail sounds better all the time.

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I just met a girl this year that is diabetic, and her dog can tell when her sugar is too low, and will also wake up family members at night if she goes into shock.

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