According to an article found at Health.com, the future of cancer prevention may be in the nasal passages of canines.
The Pine Street Foundation, a cancer education and research center in San Anselmo, Calif., is training dogs to literally sniff out early stage ovarian cancer. The Foundation now holds success in training dogs to identify patients with lung and breast cancer, but only in the late stages of the diseases.
Nicholas Broffman, executive director of the foundation, gave the following quote:
“Is there something about the breath of people with cancer that is different in people who do not have cancer?” Broffman wants to know. “Our goal is to identify what collection of molecules in the breath are unique to ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer, and develop a test to find those.”
The use of animals in disease detection is not new, and other animals have been used to detect disease.
Scientists are likely years from identifying exactly what the dogs detect in the difference between the breath of those with cancer and those without. Eventually, scientists hope to discover the type of cancer a patient suffers from and even use a mechanical device to do so.
“It would be great to have a Breathalyzer-type machine that could do this,” Broffman says. “Our goal is to identify what collection of molecules are unique to ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, or lung cancer, and can we develop a test to find those. Scientifically, this is very difficult.”
Dogs are able to detect nuances in scents that scientific devices cannot, allowing them to be the at the forefront of cancer prevention.
To read more about dogs and other animals used to fight disease, read the original article at Health.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment