Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Pennsylvania recently conducted a study on beagles and found that they are capable of detecting lung cancer in humans.
Published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, the research showed three beagles were about 97 percent accurate in identifying blood serum samples of patients with lung cancer from healthy control samples.
The researchers from LECOM’s Bradenton, Florida campus, in cooperation with BioScentDX chose beagles because scent hounds are perfect for the scent-centered study. Dogs’ sense of smell is 10,000 times stronger than humans, while beagles have 225 million olfactory receptors, compared to a human’s 5 million.
According to the study, the beagles have the ability to detect breast, lung and colorectal cancer through breathe condensate samples collected from patients’ facemasks. Researchers said they hope to expand their study and include other canine breeds and other types of cancer.
American Cancer Society explained lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths for men and women worldwide.
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