By Floro Mercene
Dogs’ powerful noses have 300 million sensors, compared with a human’s measly 5 million. In addition, dogs have a second smelling device in the back of their noses. That double smelling system allows trained dogs to detect cancer’s unique odors, called volatile organic compounds in urine or in breath, very low concentration of the alkanes and aromatic compounds generated by malignant tumors. Since the first report in 1989, the studies have shown that dogs really can detect the smell of cancer.
A British organization, Medical Detection Dogs, has eight dogs sniff out 3,000 urine samples from National Health Service patients to see whether they can discern who has cancer and who doesn’t.
Residents of a town in Japan with high rates of stomach cancer are participating in a trial to test the accuracy of these cancer-sniffing dogs as part of the town’s health check up. Frozen urine samples of residents are sent to Nippon Medical School. There, highly trained detection dogs will sniff the samples for signs of cancer. The screenings have been well received by residents of the town because of the ease of the process which does not require invasive procedures such as gastroscopies to detect even early-stage cancers. People with positive results were being referred to doctors.
In Japan, there are only five cancer sniffer dogs. All of them were trained by St. Sugar Japan, a dog training center. It costs about 5 million yen ($44,000) to train a dog over three years. To boost effectiveness, two years or more of additional training may be needed.
Researchers and doctors say that more donations, corporate investment or financial aid from the state are required for more handlers and dogs to be trained. They say such investments are worthwhile because it enable medical costs to be significantly reduced when cancers are detected early.
