Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Shutterstock/Annette Shaff
clever dog
Study finds dogs can sniff out cancer 98% of the time
More than 40,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK.
DOGS HAVE A 98% reliability rate in sniffing out prostate cancer in men.
That’s according to a study carried out by the Department of Urology at the Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre in Milan.
It backs up previous research carried out by Medical Detection Dogs that found a 93% reliability rate.
Its co-founder doctor Claire Guest said: “These results are spectacular. They offer us further proof that dogs have the ability to detect human cancer.
“It is particularly exciting that we have such a high success rate in the detection of prostate cancer, for which the existing tests are woefully inadequate.”
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with more than 40,000 new cases diagnosed every year.
The Italian study involved two German shepherds sniffing the urine of 900 men – 360 with prostate cancer and 540 without.
One dog one got it right in 98.7% of cases, while the other was correct in 97.6% of cases.
The dogs were able to detect prostate cancer specific volatile organic compounds in the urine but the question still remains of how a dog would find it in daily practice.
The research is published in the Journal Of Urology.
have your say