Study: Dogs Can Smell Lung Cancer

A new study has found that dogs can detect the smell of organic compounds that are linked to the presence of cancer in the human body. Scientists had the dogs sniff test tubes that contained breath samples from patients who had lung cancer and some who did not. The dogs identified lung cancer in 71 out of 100 patients who had the disease. Findings indicate that dogs may be a good “detection device,” say researchers, who caution: "We’ve seen this happen enough to suggest there are compounds in the breath of patients with cancer that could provide an early warning about the presence of cancer in the body, but we still do not know exactly what those compounds are. We can’t pick out what the dogs smell.”