Dogs as Cancer Detectors

There’s a new reason now to call dogs “man’s best friend” and it has to do with cancer. A recent study conducted by Italian researchers  found that specially trained dogs were able to detect prostate cancer from urine samples with 98% accuracy.

The results of the study were being discussed on a television news show and I watched as the dogs sniffed each of the samples of urine and then sat down in front of the one that had cancer cells in it. The two dogs used in this study were German Shepherds and had previously been bomb detecting dogs.

Super Nose Powers

A dog’s sense of smell is so much more powerful than a humans. We have around 5 million olfactory cells in our noses (receptors that detect different odors) and dogs have approximately 200 million.

After reading about the super powers of a dog’s nose, I immediately felt sorry for Bo, my son’s dog. I can’t imagine the odor of my son’s tennis shoes multiplied by 200 million!!!!

If this works for prostate cancer, could it work for other cancers?

Recent studies have shown that dogs can also alert people to epileptic and diabetic seizures (it has to do with the smell of breath or sweat).

Researchers have also been testing dogs’ ability to detect melanoma, as well as breast, lung, bladder and ovarian cancer.

I have always been an animal lover, especially when it comes to dogs. Now I have just one more reason to love them.