Dogs test cancer: "Cancer Sniffer Dog Project" enters the experimental stage
August 10, 2015 Source: Xinhuanet
Window._bd_share_config={ "common":{ "bdSnsKey":{ },"bdText":"","bdMini":"2","bdMiniList":false,"bdPic":"","bdStyle":" 0","bdSize":"16"},"share":{ }};with(document)0[(getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||body).appendChild(createElement('script')) .src='http://bdimg.share.baidu.com/static/api/js/share.js?v=89860593.js?cdnversion='+~(-new Date()/36e5)];Today, the Cancer Sniffer Dog Program is approved by the UK National Health System and is in the experimental phase to further validate the dog's magical ability.
The Milton Keynes University Hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK, has recently approved the research program proposed by the charity “Medical Sniffer Dogâ€. This institution has been training sniffer dogs to identify the "smell" of prostate tumors in urine samples. The researchers' previous research showed that the accuracy of sniffer dogs for detecting prostate cancer was 93%.
Cancer screening depends on the news?
Iqbal Anzin, a urologist at Milton Keynes University Hospital, said that in the past few years, many reports have said that dogs can "smell" the taste of cancer tumors. This test is based on the fact that volatile molecules in cancerous tumors enter the urine from cancerous cells with a distinctive odor. Urine samples are easier to collect and detect than traditional cancer detection methods.
The Milton Keynes University Hospital will conduct the "Medical Sniffer Dog" trial over the next three years, with nine specially trained dogs identifying 3,000 urine samples from patients. The nine "dog doctors" include six Labrador, two Springer dogs and a Hungarian Wisla dog.
According to the research protocol, the “analysis†of cancer detection by dogs will be compared with the results of traditional cancer detection analysis to verify the effectiveness of this “non-traditional†screening.
What if I can't accurately detect cancer with just one dog? According to the test procedure, each sample will be tested by two or three dogs. If the first day of testing does not yield an accurate result, the urine sample will be tested again the next day.
At this stage, prostate specific antigen detection is an important method for clinical screening of prostate cancer. However, the problem with this test is that the false positive rate is higher. If the diagnosis results in a false positive due to inaccuracy, the patient usually needs to undergo more examinations such as biopsy, which causes other risks such as bleeding, infection, and urinary incontinence.
Can it replace traditional testing?
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States and the United Kingdom following skin cancer. In 2011 alone, there were more than 41,700 cases of prostate cancer detected in the UK.
Can sniffer dog detection replace traditional prostate cancer screening? It is too early to conclude. No one knows how sniffer canine cancer detection can be applied to the clinic and can be widely promoted. However, the researchers believe that at least this test can be used as a "second line of defense". After the patient passes the first prostate specific antigen test, the sniffer dog test can improve the accuracy of cancer screening to prevent "false positives". The result brings more unnecessary depth testing to the patient.
Outside the UK, sniffer dogs in other countries have similarly made positive progress in detecting cancer research. In 2014, an Italian study showed that the sniffer dog's detection accuracy of 677 urine samples was 98%.
In fact, sniffer dogs have been studying malignant tumors through odors for more than two decades. The researchers found that cancers that dogs can smell include lung cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer. In addition to smelling the malignant tumors in the urine, dogs can smell the special smell of cancer patients' breaths.
If one day the dog can really become a doctor, it will be a good news for many patients. For example, colonoscopy for screening colon cancer is painful. If you want the dog to check it, just take a sample of the patient's breath and let the dog smell it. It is easy and painless, saving time and effort.
"hairy biological detector"
Usually, sniffer dogs have to undergo 6 months of training to become a reliable "cancer tester." At the beginning of the training, any smell in the urine sample is found and the dog is rewarded. Subsequently, they will only be rewarded after smelling the smell of cancerous tumors. Whether untrained dogs can detect cancer is not currently relevant.
However, according to Claire Gust, one of the founders of the Medical Sniffer Dog, her untrained pet dog, Daisy, helped her detect breast cancer. In 2009, Gust found that Daisy always inexplicably arched a painful area of ​​his chest. Later, she underwent breast cancer screening and found two tumors.
Gust said that the reliability of the dog's nose is more reliable than most existing cancer screening tests. "We know that their sense of smell is super sensitive and the precision is up to one part per trillion. That is equivalent to a drop of blood in the blood bank of two Olympic-sized swimming pools." Gust believes that the early screening of cancer in the UK The rate of investigations is at a low level in Europe. The NHS should introduce “innovative means of early screening for cancer†“more daringlyâ€. "We shouldn't just give up these high-precision bio-detectors with fur."
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