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Dogs Sniff Out Bladder Cancer From Urine

Posted by timothy on from the what-are-they-detecting-in-the-kitty-litter dept.

hookedup writes "Volunteers from Hearing Dogs for Deaf People found dogs can be trained to sniff out a tell-tale scent of bladder cancer from urine. As a group, the 6 dogs used in the test correctly flagged the positive sample 22 times out of 54, for a success rate of 41 per cent. By chance alone, the expected success rate would be 14 per cent"

1 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Re:False Positives by ptaff · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the original paper in the British Medical Journal, the experiment was to show 7 petri dishes to each of the 6 dogs, one of the dishes containing 'cancered' urine, and repeating this 9 times. So dogs flagged the wrong dish 32 times out of 54, making both a false positive and a false negative every time. I'm no stat wiz, but I feel the "41% success rate" is a bit misleading.

    Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers?