Dogs Able to Detect Cancer Better Than Some Lab Tests

It isn’t news that dogs are more than just a furry friend, or a four-legged member of the family. Service dogs assist people with a myriad of disabilities, from visual and hearing impairments to various types of autism and low blood sugar. K9 Police Units employ their canine’s superior sense of smell to detect illegal substances, chemicals, and explosives, track missing individuals, and locate bodies that have been buried or submerged underwater.  

There is now a group in the UK, Medical Detection Dogs, that is working to train, what they call Cancer Detection Dogs, to sniff out difficult to diagnose cancers, such as prostate cancer. The goal of the organization’s program is to assist in the scientific development of an electronic system that could provide  cost-effective, non-invasive cancer detection through research, and, in the short term, to provide a second line screening for cancers.

A clinical trial is currently underway in which these cancer-sniffing canines are brought into a room containing a carousel holding eight different urine samples – one from a cancer patient and seven control samples, at least one of which will be from someone about the same age as the cancer patient who had cancer symptoms, but not the actual disease, according to CNN. Eight of Medical Detection Dogs’ dogs are participating in the study. 3,000 urine samples have been obtained from National Health Service patients.