CANCER SNIFFING DOGS (!)

 

Nova Scotia, 1999 or 2000

 

The trees changed colors to match her sweater

 

 

Boy, even Stephen King couldn’t make this stuff up!  All over the world, sophisticated research groups have spent millions of dollars, euros, pounds, rupees, etc., attempting to develop blood (sometimes urine) tests to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage.  They have made progress, but progress has been agonizingly slow.  Now – if this stuff pans out – all their efforts may become as naught, for a more sensitive, cheaper, and more cuddlesome test may be at hand: cancer sniffing dogs!

My good friends Ron and Terri Dupuis yesterday alerted me to a news story making the rounds.  Some people in Pennsylvania, including doctors, physicists, and veterinarians, are working with dogs that seem to be able to detect ovarian cancer – AT AN EARLY STAGE -  by smell alone!  I guess this could be real – they can detect minute quantities of all sorts of things with their noses; witness all the sniffing dogs in airports these days - so why not disease?  Before we got all scientific and such, doctors used  smell to help diagnose many conditions.  I suppose it is possible that ovarian cancers, even at an early stage,  emit certain chemicals that can be diagnostic.  There are experiments underway to identify these chemical (“odorants”) using machines, but apparently dogs can do it better - and with a wagging tail!.  Or maybe they can.  As always, more work needs to be done.

So, you all know how annoying it is to have some strange mutt shove his muzzle into your body (usually your crotch) on first greeting;.  But, think – maybe he is just performing a health evaluation!

More on cancer sniffing dogs:  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264629.php