Earlier this year, Japanese researchers announced that they had trained a dog to detect colon cancer by smelling the poop of cancer victims. Now, reseachers at Schillerhoehe Hospital in Germany have discovered that trained dogs can detect lung cancer by sniffing the breath of sick patients:
Link -via io9 | Photo: European Lung Foundation
The dogs successfully identified 71 samples with lung cancer out of a possible 100. They also correctly detected 372 samples that did not have lung cancer out of a possible 400.
The dogs could also detect lung cancer independently from COPD and tobacco smoke. These results confirm the presence of a stable marker for lung cancer that is independent of COPD and also detectable in the presence of tobacco smoke, food odours and drugs.
Link -via io9 | Photo: European Lung Foundation