Ideas, Inventions And Innovations
Toward a Disease-Sniffing Device to Rival a Dog’s Nose Trained dogs can detect cancer and other diseases by smell. A miniaturized detector can analyze trace molecules to mimic the process.
Caption:Andreas Mershin visits with one of the trained disease-sniffing dogs in his office at MIT. The dogs are trained and handled in the UK by the organization Medical Detection Dogs.
Credits: Photo: Medical Diagnostic Dogs
Numerous studies have shown that trained dogs can detect many kinds of disease including lung, breast, ovarian, bladder, and prostate cancers, and possibly Covid-19 simply through smell. In some cases, involving prostate cancer for example, the dogs had a 99 percent success rate in detecting the disease by sniffing patients’ urine samples.
Dogs are trained to detect some variants of cancer, COVID-19, and other diseases. Now, a disease-detection device can now match the capability of a dog's nose.
19th February 2021 7:20 am 19th February 2021 12:07 pm
Researchers have developed a device with greater sensitivity than a dog’s nose, aiming for more accurate disease detection in lab samples.
Image: Alexander Stein, Pixabay
The findings, which researchers said could someday lead to an automated odour-detection system small enough to be incorporated into a mobile phone, have been published in
PLOS One. The paper is authored by Clare Guest of Medical Detection Dogs in the UK, research scientist Andreas Mershin of MIT, and 18 others from various universities and organisations including Johns Hopkins University and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Studies have shown that trained dogs can detect diseases including various types of cancer, and potentially COVID-19. In some cases, involving prostate cancer for example, dogs had a 99 per cent success rate in detecting the disease by sniffing patients’ urine samples.
Updated / Friday, 19 Feb 2021
10:55
Florin the Labrador was trained to detect prostate cancer in urine samples
A dog s nose could hold the key to detecting the most lethal type of prostate cancer, scientists have said.
Results from a study involving English charity Medical Detection Dogs could lead to the development of a more sensitive and specific prostate cancer diagnostic method beyond the blood test which is currently used, researchers said.
They hope the work can be replicated in a bigger study and eventually result in the production of a robotic nose perhaps in the form of a smartphone app.
Dr Claire Guest, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Medical Detection Dogs, said the publication of the study is extremely exciting .