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| Does cancer have a smell? |
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Yes. A wide variety of cancers have been shown to produce smells that are detectable, just not by humans. Dogs have incredibly sensitive sense of smell. For years there have been reported cases of dogs smelling skin cancer and bringing it to the attention of their owners. Human skin naturally gives of airborne molecules called volatile organic compounds (VOC). It’s likely the dogs smell a change in the VOC’s. In a study published in the August 2008 British Journal of Dermatology, researchers identified a standard profile of 100 different VOCs for normal healthy skin. They then measured the VOCs of 11 people with skin cancer and compared it to the profile of 11  healthy people (controls). They found that the concentration of the various VOCs was different in patients with skin cancer. Using this information researchers are hopeful that they may one day be able to make an electronic nose that can detect skin cancers by smell. In the meantime, perhaps dogs could be used as cancer detector? In 2004, British researchers trained six dogs of varying breeds to identify urine that came from bladder cancer patients. After intense training, the dogs were able to identify the urine from bladder cancer patients 41% of the time. If left to pure chance they would have only been able to do it 14% of the time. In a study published in the March 2006 issue of Integrative Cancer Therapies, researchers in California trained dogs to identify lung and breast cancer based on breath samples. In this study the dogs could identify cancer between 88 and 97 percent of the time! That’s doggone accurate. Comments (0)
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