New York – Prostate cancer is the most common cancer malignancy in men, with more than 250,000 cases diagnosed and 28,000 deaths yearly.
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Now, man’s best friend may be able to save a man’s life with its nose.
“A new study demonstrated that dogs can be trained to identify and diagnose prostate cancer,” said Touro Urologist, Dr. Neil Baum.
Dr. Baum says the trained dogs, out of a study in France, sniffed the urine of men with prostate cancer and were nearly perfect in letting doctors know which ones were positive for prostate cancer and which ones were not.
“They can find it right now in any stage and the dogs are so accurate that when given 66 samples of urine, they were able to identify 63 men with prostate cancer,” said Dr. Baum about the study.
For years, man has used dogs to find things we can’t see or smell, that’s because smelling is the canine’s primary sense, said to be 1,000 times more sensitive than humans. A dog has 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose. The receptors are the nerve endings that go to the brain so the smell can be interpreted. Humans only have five million.
“The cells, the prostate cancer, secretes a substance of which has not been identified that can be picked up by dogs,” Dr. Baum explained.
So there’s some sort of volatile organic compound (VOC) made by cancer cells that we can’t smell but dogs can, according to French Researchers. And if doctors can one day figure out what that is, it’s possible that a machine can be created to find that compound in urine in a lab.
“Now here’s the beauty of this,” said Dr. Baum. “At the present time the way of diagnosing prostate cancer is a blood test, the PSA blood test and a digital rectal exam. And if either of those are abnormal, the men have to have a prostate biopsy, which is a little bit uncomfortable and there are some risks involving infection and bleeding following a biopsy. We now believe that if we can identify the substance that is in the urine, men can avoid prostate biopsies.”
And remember, early diagnosis can mean the difference in life and death. Now this finding gives new meaning to why dogs are called man’s best friend.
Studies in the past have shown promising results using dogs to detect bladder and breast cancer by smelling urine samples.
Dogs are being trained to detect breast cancer for some time now. Waiting for my doctor to get one!
This is the new medical treatment under Obamacare?
why do they need a machine? let them just use the dogs to test for prostate cancer.
What does the dog do to let the doc know the results ??
make fun all you want,
my friend has a dog very sweet small dog. One day the dog started biting lightly her neck and only the neck and only her. She took the dog to the vet thinking something is wrong and then to a dog trainer and so on.
One day a friend tells her I heard dogs can smell cancer, why don’t you check out you neck with a doctor. She did and discovered she had lymphoma. The doctor said she was lucky since she found out early otherwise once it spreads it is very hard to get rid off.
63 out of 66 tested have cancer in the prostate? Hmm
This is not a french study! This form of cancer detection has been tested and used in the Isreali army for almost a year. It goes beyond prostate cancer it can detect a few more cancers.
This is super good news since early detection is the most important thing in cancer this will help diagnose people at the the very beginning stages so people can have the cancer cured and go on with life.
There is a lot of good news with cancer studies as it has been reported here a few weeks ago and I’ve read in other articles how the latest drugs will probably cure (once its approved and used on humans) several kinds of cancer. The mouse studies have proven close to 100% cure on mice for breast in late stages and a few more. Hashem yaazor. V’rapoi Y’rapei rashi says mukaan shnutan reshus leroife larapei with gods help they will heel the sick Amen
How wondrous are the works and creations of Hakodesh Boruch Hu. We humans think we are so smart. Yet Hashem Yisborach gave the lowly dog the ability to detect a fatal disease in humans that we cannot detect without expensive and complicated machinery, tests and retests and numerous opinions.
Everything in nature is created by Hashem and has a wondrous purpose that we humans are too immature and conceited to yet understand.
What do all the viscious dog and animal haters that we frequently see in VIN have to say now? A dog can save your families lives. Good!
What do you mean by “cured”? Do you mean resolved permanently with 0% of reoccurrence? If so, please tell me which cancers have been “cured”.