Can Dogs Smell Cancer?

Dogs have occupied a special place in the hearts of people for tens of thousands of years. As one of the first domesticated animals, have developed almost with us, keep our homes, in exchange for treats, a pat on the head and a warm place to sleep.

Apparently, the dogs kept in our homes - are also maintaining our health.

The dog sniff was born, the nose not only master their faces (and tits), but also their brains. Even a mini-dachshund puppy smell receptors 25 times as a man - and investigators twice. As much as people see the world how we feel, is the dog world as it is - and if it stinks is, they roll in it.

This sense of smell in dogs is a specialized tool and has long been anecdotal evidence about dogs in a position to diseases, especially cancer feel. Maybe a woman had felt a lump in his leg that no longer his dog, and when he finally examined by a doctor turned out to be cancer. Other stories are filtered through the columns of the new health-years.

But now the proof is finally here. A new study by German researchers have shown that dogs early lung cancer are better than any doctor or medical devices of fiction to identify.

The test took place on Schillerhöhe hospital in Germany with four specially trained dogs, two German Shepherds, Labrador Retriever and Australian Shepherd. Every dog ​​got a whiff of a test tube with about 220 patients, some of whom had lung cancer and some of them were cancer-free to sniff.

Of 400 samples, the dogs were able to correctly identify 71 of 100 patients with lung cancer and 372 of the 400 samples that do not have the disease. Furthermore, could the dogs between lung cancer and other lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and discriminate with precision by sniffing the breath of patients smoked only one cigarette.

What does this mean? First, lung cancer cells caused to certain volatile organic compounds emitted to release, as mutations who undergo caused by tumors. Secondly, these emissions at an early stage, which can not be detected by current technology or diagnostic medical testing, it can be identified by the good old Fido.

Lung cancer is currently the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, more victims together as prostate, breast, ovarian, lymph and colon cancer. Often the diagnosis can be very painful, brutal and deadly for the patient, can detect early stage lung cancer, the lives of about 200,000 diagnosed with the disease per year savings.

Dogs have long been the guardians of human families and tribes all over the world, thanks to donations and perfume in these amazing wet nose, dogs can be better protectors than we ever imagined.