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Dr. Dog
Researchers around the world are experimenting with ways to use artificial intelligence and other high-tech means to detect cancer.
At the same time, a startup in Florida is taking a decidedly low-tech approach in tackling the problem of cancer in dogs – and animals, the company says, are surprisingly good at fighting it.
Odor test
BioScentDx, Florida, presented its study on dog cancer detection on Monday at the Biomedical and Life Sciences Conference and Experimental Biology.
For this study, researchers used a behavioral technique called "clicker training" to teach four individuals to differentiate healthy blood samples from those taken from people with malignant lung cancer.
One of the dogs, Snuggles, was "powerless to play," according to a press release (relatable, right?). But the other three had an average accuracy of 96.7% for the identification of lung cancer samples and 97.5% for the detection of healthy samples.
Canine follow-up
According to researcher Heather Junqueira, the team believes that scientists could harness this puppy power to detect cancer.
"One uses the detection of canine odor as a method of cancer screening," she said in a press release, "and the other would be to determine the biological compounds that the dogs detect and then design cancer screening tests based on these compounds. "
READ MORE: Study shows dogs can accurately detect cancer in the blood [EurekAlert]
More about cancer detection: The AI can diagnose heart disease and lung cancer more precisely than doctors
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