Dogs Can Detect Cancer

Who said they are dumb?

RB

http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=6858


The cancer can be detected by dogs from the breath of the cancer patients.

As a part of the study, five household dogs were trained within a short 3-week period to detect lung or breast cancer by sniffing the breath of cancer participants...............

...........The results of the study showed that the dogs were able to detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. ..........

[mts]

Don't tell the insurance companies or they will find a way to charge us for this too!

Maria

[Barbara2]

Before my breast cnacer was detected, I had an area on my breast that I had been concerned about as to possibly being malignant. A mammogram had said no, as well as an ultrasound.

One day as I was sitting on the couch, our schnauzer came to join me. She went to the area of my breast that was of concern, and smelled that area for maybe 5 seconds or so. (It seems like I had my pj's on. ??) I had previously read about dogs detecting breast cancer, and the dogs used in the experiment had been schnauzers.

The thought of that article came to mind, and I did wonder if she had really noticed something in that area, or if it was a coincidence. ?? I think she detected the cancer, but will never know for sure. It was a short time after that, that the diagnosis was made.

Barbara

Interesting

RB

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8549


Abstract

.....To test how well the dogs had learned, they used a new batch of samples and had the dogs attempt to distinguish among 55 lung cancer patients, 31 breast cancer patients and 83 healthy controls. The patients had all had their cancers confirmed by biopsy. The tests were double-blind, so neither the dog handlers nor the experimenters knew which tubes were which.......

.......The dogs correctly detected 99% of the lung cancer samples, and made a mistake with only 1% of the healthy controls. With breast cancer, they correctly detected 88% of the positive samples, and made a mistake on only 2% of the controls.

The work is convincing, says James C Walker, director of the Florida State University Sensory Research Institute in Tallahassee, US. In 2004 Walker and colleagues showed that dogs could sniff out melanomas. He says that the next step is to see if dogs are really detecting cancer, or if they might be sensing a more general disease symptom, such as one that comes from inflammation.

Walker says he would like, eventually, to see a long, large-scale trial designed to test whether dogs can detect cancer even earlier than standard screening tests.

[JohnL]

I saw an extract from a TV programme being made about this. Quite incredible. More than a few scientists seem to be taking this quite seriously. Dogs' noses are far more sensitive than most chemical tests for drugs, explosives etc - so the thought of having cancer detection dogs isn't as whacky as it first seems.

Will it be off to see / got an appointment with the Dogtor in future?

RB

[JohnL]

Barking mad not to.

[StephN]

- but it is NOT scientific. Dogs have been used for centuries to detect the area of the body where a sick person had a problem. Maybe now they are finding some way to "scientifically" account for this which is acceptable to the "modern" medical community!

Did someone say that history repeats itself??

These are the result of double blind trials in the US, and trials in Poland.

In terms of things going round consider drugs derived from products such as quinone, artmesia, yew etc.

Non invasive tests using saliva, urine etc. have been suggested so there would seem to be potential say based on blood, breath, urine and skin scenting.

How long before the dogtor makes an appearance?

RB

[Maryanne]

The NBC today show did a spot on this (see attached) seems a company in CA is working with dogs to sniff out a certain protein in the breath.
One dog has been on the mark each and every time.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/?ta=y

[Barbara2]

I read an article recently about a lady who credits her dog to saving her life because he wouldn't stop paying attention to an area of her leg that eventually was discovered to be cancerous. This was a big dog that she said was not normally a "licker." Early on, he started licking a place on her leg (I can't remember for the life of me now what was there.....must have been a mole or something similiar.)

In time his licking became more aggressive, then turned to scratching the area, and finlly trying to bite at it. This went on for 6 months or so, before she headed for the doctor, who felt this was not a cancerous issue. Turns out, though, it was malignant.

It will be very interesting to see where these knew studies will lead.

A lovely tail.


RB


http://www.canada.com/globaltv/natio...8-bd9d35102129

ABSTRACT

"I thought Teddy Bear was crazy when he was digging at me," said the 76-year-old from Waverley, N.S.

[Patty H]

I have posted this before, but my dog found my first reocurrance. I had a new lump come up in my under arm. There was some pain with it, so I assumed it was nerve intrapment from my surgery. Every time I sit down she was there sticking her nose under my arm, only that arm. She would not let up. I saw my breast surgeon and she sent me right then to the breast center. Anyway they ended up removing it and the biospy came back that the node was completely replaced with cancer. I offered all my friends a free check up. But no one took me up on it. LOL Patty H