And a nose like a prostate…
Dog taught to sniff out prostate cancerCopper news
French researchers have taught a dog to detect malignant tumors of the prostate gland by the smell of urine.
The results demonstrated to the animals during the control experiment exceeded the accuracy of currently used diagnostic studies, according to WebMD (Dogs Sniff Out Prostate Cancer).
A group of employees of the Tenon Hospital in Paris, led by Jean-Nicolas Cornu, used the Belgian shepherd Malinois in their experiment. This breed is widely used by the police to search for explosives and drugs.
During the year, the animal was taught to identify urine samples from patients with diagnosed prostate cancer by smell and distinguish them from the urine of healthy men.
The control experiment consisted of 11 stages, at each of which the dog was offered urine samples from 6 patients, one of whom suffered from cancer. In 63 out of 66 tests, the animal correctly determined the patient's condition. All patients who actually had a malignant tumor were identified unmistakably. At the same time, three false positive results were noted, however, one of the three men mistakenly chosen by the dog was soon suspected of having a prostate tumor.
According to the authors of the study, the accuracy demonstrated by malinois during the experiment significantly exceeds the reliability of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) analysis used to detect prostate cancer. According to the American Urological Association, cancer is confirmed in less than a third of patients who underwent prostate biopsy based on PSA results.
The idea of using a dog's nose to diagnose oncological and other diseases is not new: there are successful experiments of using dogs for early detection of lung cancer, bladder, diabetes complications, and so on.
The researchers are currently training several more animals to confirm the results in a larger experiment. However, the mass use of dogs for cancer diagnosis seems to French specialists to be too complicated and costly. A more promising area of research, in their opinion, will be the determination of the composition of substances, the smell of which is caught by a dog in the urine of patients, and the development of highly sensitive equipment capable of doing this work instead of an animal.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru04.06.2010