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Dogs Trained To Sniff Out Ovarian Cancer

Posted by timothy on from the as-long-as-the-dogs-aren't-menacing dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Dogs have been trained to sniff out drugs, explosives, cadavers, mobile phones, firearms, and money but now AP reports that researchers have started training canines to sniff out the signature compound that indicates the presence of ovarian cancer. If the animals can isolate the chemical marker, scientists at the nearby Monell Chemical Senses Center will work to create an electronic sensor to identify the same odorant. "Because if the dogs can do it, then the question is, Can our analytical instrumentation do it? We think we can," says organic chemist George Preti. More than 20,000 Americans are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year. When it's caught early, women have a five-year survival rate of 90 percent. But because of its generic symptoms — weight gain, bloating or constipation — the disease is more often caught late."

7 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Wanted: Annoying crotch sniffing dog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wanted: Annoying crotch sniffing dog. While any breed will do, one who's head is about waist height and who's nose is not too messy is preferred. Top dollar will be paid for obsessive-compulsive sniffers.

  2. Bad metric by Grantbridge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "When it's caught early, women have a five-year survival rate of 90 percent" - this is true for nearly all cancers even if there is no treatment. The fire-year survival rate depends MOSTLY on when you diagnose someone. And if you have a high false-positive in your diagnosis then you get a really big boost to the five-year survival rate. Screening programs boost the metric, but they don't necessarily boost actual survival, as the fire-year time starts from diagnosis.

    1. Re:Bad metric by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Informative

      After a bit of Googling, it looks like this is called the "lead time bias" and is a rather significant issue with interpreting the benefits of a diagnostic test. That said, when 70% of sufferers aren't discovered until after metastasis, a better diagnostic method is desperately needed.

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      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:Bad metric by Grantbridge · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well it depends on the cancer, I don't know about for Ovarian in particular, but for prostate you often find cancerous tissue, but it is so slow growing it wouldn't be a threat unless you lived to be over 100, and as such the side effects of treatment are much worse than the cancer would have been. These sorts of slow growing non-threatening cancers wouldn't ever produce symptoms, and so wouldn't be diagnosed without a screening programme.

    3. Re:Bad metric by blackest_k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      10-year relative survival ranges from 84.1% in stage IA to 10.4% in stage IIIC
        Survival rates based on SEER incidence and NCHS mortality statistics, as cited by the National Cancer Institute in SEER Stat Fact Sheets â" Cancer of the Ovary http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html

      In Laymans terms if Ovarian Cancer is caught early then treatment such as Surgery and Chemotherapy have a reasonable chance of keeping women alive for 10 years or more, diagnose later and the chances are she will die. Screening really is about the only method of catching treatable cancers at an early enough stage that they can be treated since if you don't look for it , it tends to be already at an untreatable stage when it is eventually discovered.
      Obviously screening doesnt make the untreatable , treatable but it does save lives where early treatment can make a difference. It's not pointless which is what you appear to imply.

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      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    4. Re:Bad metric by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well it depends on the cancer, I don't know about for Ovarian in particular, but for prostate you often find cancerous tissue, but it is so slow growing it wouldn't be a threat unless you lived to be over 100, and as such the side effects of treatment are much worse than the cancer would have been. These sorts of slow growing non-threatening cancers wouldn't ever produce symptoms, and so wouldn't be diagnosed without a screening programme.

      That is true with prostate cancer, but not ovarian cancer. Besides in relation to the original post, finding cancer cells in one's prostate, even if slow growing would not be a false positive but an actual positive. But yes, if you are 80 and they find prostate cancer they may not do anything about it. If you are 60 and they find it, they aren't going to just let it go.

  3. Genitals by Olix · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is a pretty good idea as dogs like to smell genitals anyway. They should do it for testicular cancer too.