Canine diagnostics
Japanese scientists have confirmed the ability of dogs to detect bowel cancer by smell, including in the early stages of the disease, according to the BBC (Early bowel cancer detected by dogs in Japan).
Attempts to use dogs to diagnose various diseases have been made for a long time – the most famous centers dealing with this are located in Japan and the UK. Thus, the ability of these animals to detect malignant neoplasms of the skin, gallbladder, lung, prostate, ovary and breast was demonstrated. In addition, the British center in Aylesbury trains dogs that warn the diabetic owner about an excessive decrease in blood glucose levels and the danger of developing a hypoglycemic coma.
Researchers from Kyushu University in their work used an eight-year-old female Labrador retriever named Marin, belonging to the chief cynologist of the center in Shirahama Yuji Satoh (Yuji Satoh).
A snapshot from the article Dog sniffs out cancer with over 90% accuracy: study (Kyodo News, 29 Jan 2011) – WM.
This dog's cancer recognition abilities are considered to be the best in the world, so when she had to have her uterus removed due to illness, Korean specialists commissioned the owners to create four clones of her.
During the experiment, Marin was offered a series of five stool samples and exhaled air for diagnosis. One sample in each series was taken from a cancer patient, the rest from healthy people.
When diagnosing by breathing, the dog chose the correct samples in 33 out of 36 series, and by feces – in 37 out of 38 series. The probability of detecting the disease did not depend on its stage. At the same time, the generally accepted method of primary detection of bowel cancer by analysis for hidden blood in the stool recognizes only about one case out of ten.
One of the researchers Hideto Sonoda noted that there are a number of difficulties in the mass introduction of "canine" diagnostics into clinical practice: training animals requires time and money, while the ability to sniff out cancer in different dogs is different.
Therefore, work is underway to create a more accurate "electronic nose", but this requires the identification of volatile compounds specific to each form of cancer.
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02.02.2011