97% of Breast and Lung Cancer Can Be Detected By Something You Least Expect

Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., M.S.

A new study published in the Journal Integrative Cancer Therapies has discovered that dogs have a keen sense of smell capable of detecting breast and lung cancers in human beings.

The research was conducted by the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding, and the Pine Street Foundation, California.

The scientists involved in the research were Tadeusz Jezierski and Michael McCulloch. The cancer can be detected by dogs from the breath of the cancer patients.

How the Study Was Conducted

In the new study, five dogs were trained over a 3-week period to detect lung or breast cancer by sniffing the breath of cancer participants. The trial was comprised of 86 cancer patients (55 with lung cancer and 31 with breast cancer) and a control sample of 83 healthy patients.

All cancer patients had recently been diagnosed with cancer through biopsy-confirmed conventional methods such as a mammogram, or CAT scan and had not yet undergone any chemotherapy treatment.

During the study, the dogs were presented with breath samples from the cancer patients and the controls, captured in a special tube. The dogs were trained to give a positive identification of a cancer patient by sitting or lying down directly in front of a test station containing a cancer patient sample, while ignoring control samples.

The results showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88 percent and 97 percent. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer.

Reference Michael McCulloch, Tadeusz Jezierski, Michael Broffman, Alan Hubbard, Kirk Turner,and Teresa Janecki, Diagnostic Accuracy of Canine Scent Detection in Early- and Late-Stage Lung and Breast Cancers. Integrated Cancer Therapies March 2005, Vol 5, No 1