Study Shows Dogs Able To Smell Cancer
LONDON (AP) ― It has long been suspected that man's best friend has a special ability to sense when something is wrong with us. Now the first experiment to verify that scientifically has demonstrated that dogs are able to smell cancer.
Experts say it's unlikely that pooches will become practical partners in cancer detection any time soon, but the results of the study, outlined this week in the British Medical Journal, are promising.
They show that when urine from bladder cancer patients was set out among samples from healthy people or those with other diseases, the dogs — all ordinary pets — were able to identify the cancer patients' urine almost three times more often than would be expected by chance alone.
"The issue is not whether or not they can detect cancer, because clearly they can. The issue is whether you can set up a system whereby they can communicate with you. That requires further ingenuity," said Tim Cole, a professor of medical statistics at Imperial College in London, who was unconnected with the study and is the owner of a chocolate Labrador retriever.
David Neal, a bladder and prostate cancer surgeon at Cambridge University in England, said it's plausible dogs might be able to pick up the scent of cancer because people with the disease shed abnormal proteins in their urine.
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