Labradors can sniff out cancer
Labrador retrievers can detect the early stages of bowel cancer with more than 90% accuracy, according to a new study.
Previous research has suggested certain breeds, usually labradors or Portuguese water dogs, can sniff out bladder, skin, lung, breast and ovarian cancers.
Trained dogs have also picked up melanomas by sniffing skin lesions, while even domestic pets have raised the alarm with agitated behaviour which led their owners to seek medical advice.
For bowel cancer, the current NHS screening programme uses a test which detects minute amounts of blood in stool samples - but it detects only one in ten early cases.
The latest research, published in the journal Gut, found an astonishingly high success rate. Over several months, researchers used the labrador to carry out 74 sniff tests.
Each test group comprised one sample from a patient with bowel cancer, and four control samples from those who were clear. The samples were randomly placed into five boxes.
The labrador's ability to detect cancer in breath samples was 95% accurate overall, and 98% accurate for stool samples.
"The accuracy was high even for early cancer," said the Japanese study. "These odour materials may become effective tools in screening."
They acknowledge that it might be difficult to use dogs in clinical practice owing to the expense and time it takes to train them.
But they hope that cancer-specific compounds detected by dogs could be incorporated into a new electronic sensor.
Labrador retrievers can detect the early stages of bowel cancer with more than 90% accuracy, according to a new study.
Previous research has suggested certain breeds, usually labradors or Portuguese water dogs, can sniff out bladder, skin, lung, breast and ovarian cancers.
Trained dogs have also picked up melanomas by sniffing skin lesions, while even domestic pets have raised the alarm with agitated behaviour which led their owners to seek medical advice.
For bowel cancer, the current NHS screening programme uses a test which detects minute amounts of blood in stool samples - but it detects only one in ten early cases.
The latest research, published in the journal Gut, found an astonishingly high success rate. Over several months, researchers used the labrador to carry out 74 sniff tests.
Each test group comprised one sample from a patient with bowel cancer, and four control samples from those who were clear. The samples were randomly placed into five boxes.
The labrador's ability to detect cancer in breath samples was 95% accurate overall, and 98% accurate for stool samples.
"The accuracy was high even for early cancer," said the Japanese study. "These odour materials may become effective tools in screening."
They acknowledge that it might be difficult to use dogs in clinical practice owing to the expense and time it takes to train them.
But they hope that cancer-specific compounds detected by dogs could be incorporated into a new electronic sensor.