Dogs have been known for the strong sense of smell, having more than 40 times the scent-detecting abilities in their noses as we do. Dogs share our lives in a way that most other animals can't, dogs are very loyal and caring animal, it's effortless to take their faithful companionship, Dogs have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell,  because of these qualities we are training the dogs for many purposes, such as military dogs, sniffer dogs, etc




Now the studies prooving that Dogs smell sense can detect the odor signatures of various types of cancer.

https://bioneers.org/dogs-can-detect-cancer/


Research study 1

Olfactory Detection of Prostate Cancer by Dogs Sniffing Urine: A Step Forward in Early Diagnosis by jean nicolas corny et al 2011

  • this study is done To evaluate the efficacy of prostate cancer (PCa) detection by trained dogs, the human urine samples are used in this study.
  • All urine samples were frozen for preservation and heated to the same temperature for all tests.
  • The Dogs have given 24 months training, 
  • the dog’s ability to discriminate PCa and control urine was tested in a double-blind procedure.
  • 66 urine samples are collected from the patients, all patients underwent prostate biopsy.
  • divided them into 2 groups,  33 patients with cancer and 33 controls presenting negative biopsies.
procedure :  

The 6 samples are placed in one place, in which containing only one cancer urine,  Sensitivity and specificity of the test were assessed

Result :
In this study, Dogs have correctly identified the cancer samples in 30 of 33 cases. in that 3 cases wrongly identified as cancer.

This study concluded as Dogs can be trained to detect prostate cancer by smelling urine with a significant success rate

Click here for the proof of research article.



https://www.ovrs.com/blog/cancer-sniffing-dogs/


Research study 2

Olfactory detection of human bladder cancer by dogs: proof of principle study by Carolyn M Willis,  et al., 2004 


  • This study is done to evaluate dogs can be trained to identify people with bladder cancer on the basis of urine odour, more successfully than would be expected by chance alone.
  • this study design is experimental in which 6 Dogs were selected by training,
  • The Dogs were trained to discriminate between urine from patients with bladder cancer and urine from diseased and healthy controls.
  • For Training, they selected 36 male and female patients,  age around 48-90 presenting with bladder cancer In that 36 patients 27 samples used for training, 9 used for formal testing.
  • after the training 108 samples have taken which diseased and healthy, age range 18-85 years in that 54 samples used in training; 54 used for testing.

Results :
 the dogs correctly selected urine from patients with bladder cancer on 22 out of 54. This mean gives a success rate of 41%, dogs can be trained to distinguish patients with bladder cancer on the basis of urine odour more successfully than would be expected by chance alone. This suggests that tumour related volatile compounds are present in urine, imparting a characteristic odour signature distinct from those associated with secondary effects of the tumour, such as bleeding, inflammation, and infection.
Click here for the proof of research article



I have Referred this 2 studies and  I came to the conclusion that in future the medical field is going to have a significant achievement in early Diagnosing of cancer by dogs.



Check out the video from BBC Earth



This video is about an old lady Maureen and her Dog Max, she found a small lump in her breast and her dog given an odd hyper behaviour, she went to the local hospital. the scan and mammogram result was negative.  Finally, it took a surgical biopsy to detect cancer,








Thank You