This Dog Breed is 97-Percent Accurate Detecting Lung Cancer Via Smell
I had to read the headline twice myself.
This is truly remarkable stuff.
The beagle is 97.5-percent accurate in detecting lung cancer through smell according to a new study.
Doctors are constantly looking for ways that are highly accurate, but NOT highly expensive to diagnose lung cancer.
Beagles are successfully capable of detecting the scent of lung cancer in a patient's breath, thus identifying a specific biomarker of the disease. This is a major breakthrough.
The dogs' remarkable accuracy may lead to a safe, affordable, and effective mass cancer screening alternative in the not-too-distant future.
The researchers are also working on beagles sniffing out lung, breast and colorectal cancer from patients' breath samples. This would be the potential first step on the path to developing an over-the-counter screening test -- similar to a pregnancy test -- that could detect lung cancer early enough to be treated.
The humans are racing to catch up and figure out what the beagles know and how they know it, as the dogs have a better natural ability to screen for cancer than the most advanced technology.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for men and women worldwide. More than 200,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with lung cancer every year.