DutchNews.nl, March 24, 2015
Dogs being trained to sniff out bowel
cancer can already recognise its smell after less than a year in training, the
Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.
The five cocker spaniels are being trained by the
Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation KNGF and have sniffed 380 samples of human
faeces including some from patients with bowel cancer. They are already able to
pick out the 20 tubes containing faeces from bowel cancer patients in 80% of
attempts.
The KNGF is working with the VU medical centre in Amsterdam on this
pilot project to train dogs as medical detectives. According to the VU, it is
an important step in the early diagnosis of bowel cancer which is discovered in
15,000 people a year.
‘Bowel cancer is mainly diagnosed following a
colonoscopy,’ the VU’s professor Henk Verheul says on the KNGF website. ‘This
is uncomfortable for the patient and leads to late diagnosis. It would be
fantastic if we could use specially trained dogs to search for cancer by
sniffing faeces or breath.’
The intention is to train dogs to recognise other
forms of cancer in the future.
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