Dogs can help specialists "smell" cancers? It may sound impossible, yet this exploration has gained great progress. As of late, the "Cancer Sniffing Dogs Project", endorsed by the British NHS, has entered the testing stage.
Could Cancer Screening Depend Totally on Sniffing? "The proof of this testing system is that unstable molecules in tumors will go into patients' urine from dangerous cells, which give their urine a special odor. Compared to common method of identifying cancer, urine samples are easy to be collected and tested ", said Iqbal Ann, urologist of Milton Keynes University Hospital. Milton Keynes University Hospital will continue this project in the following three years. In this project, nine dogs that are trained under strict standards are going to identify urine samples from 3,000 patients, among which, there are six Labrador, two Springer Spaniel and one Hungarian Wirehaired. According to the study protocol, the cancer detection "analysis" made by these dogs will be compared to the traditional testing one, so that they can verify the accuracy of this "non-traditional" screening approach. You may have this concern that can this job be done only by one dog? According to the testing procedure, each sample will be detected by two to three dogs. If researchers can’t get the accurate results, the urine samples will be detected for the second time the next day. Can This New Testing Technology Takes Place of The Traditional One? Researchers: It can be used as the "second line of defense" in current stage at least. Prostate-specific antigen test is clinically important for prostate cancer screening. This detection, however, has its own problem that it is of high false positive rate. If the result is false-positive, patients have to accept more examinations like biopsy. Can sniffer dog detection takes the place of traditional prostate cancer screening like immunized human antibody library? It is still too early to draw a conclusion at least for now. This detection, however, has its own problem that it is of high false positive rate. If the result is false-positive, patients have to accept more examinations like biopsy. Nobody knows how to bring this brand new technology into clinical use, or whether it can be promoted widely. What researchers believe is that this detection can be utilized as a "second line of defense". After the patients have the first prostate specific antigen test, sniffer dog detection can improve the accuracy of cancer screening. Comments are closed.
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