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Study shows dogs can sniff out lung cancer
Aug 18, 2011, 0:02 GMT
Gerlingen, Germany - Dogs can be trained to smell lung cancer even at its early stages, a study by German doctors published Thursday said.
Dogs picked up an odour of cancer on the breath of 71 out of 100 sufferers, and correctly recognized that 372 out of 400 other people were cancer-free, according to Thorsten Walles, author of the study, published in the European Respiratory Journal.
Previous studies have found dogs can also recognize skin, breast and bowel cancer.
What the dogs actually smell is unclear, but the tests worked regardless of whether or not the sufferer was a smoker or suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
'There are probably extra substances in the breath of lung-cancer patients and the fine sense of smell of a dog can pick this up at an early stage of the illness,' said Walles.
The study was conducted by doctors at Schillerhoehe Hospital in Gerlingen, south-western Germany. The findings, the first to confirm indicative results from smaller studies, were made public by the European Lung Foundation.
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