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Dogs may be able to sniff out cancer - Cancer - MSNBC.com http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10822627/

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Can your pet sniff out cancer? Dogs can detect the disease by smelling breath samples, study finds Health Health Library Diet & Fitness NBC VIDEO Updated: 1:26 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2006 Sexual Health Bird Flu NEW YORK - Dogs' keen sense of smell might Women's Health help in the early diagnosis of cancer, researchers report in the current issue of Men's Health Integrative Cancer Therapies. The findings Children's Health show that trained ordinary household dogs can Cancer detect early-stage lung and breast cancers by Infectious Diseases merely sniffing the breath samples of patients. Heart Health Aging "We've seen anecdotal evidence before Stem Cell suggesting that dogs can smell the presence of Research certain types of cancer," Michael McCulloch, More Health News from the Pine Street Foundation in San Pet Health Anselmo, California, told Reuters Health, "but • Dogs may help detect cancer News Video until now, nobody had conducted a thorough Jan. 12: NBC's Michael Okwu reports on U.S. News study such as this." Researchers have dogs that detect cancer by smelling a World News observed that cancer cells release molecules person's breath. different from those of their healthy Business Today show counterparts, and that might be perceived by Olympics Today Show smell by the highly sensitive dog's nose. Sports Entertainment For the study, five dogs, three Labrador Q & A LIBRARY Tech / Science retrievers and two Portuguese water dogs, Click on a topic to learn more: were trained by a professional instructor to Health • Breast cancer • Ovarian cancer respond differently to exhaled breath samples Weather • Colon cancer • Prostate cancer of healthy and cancer patients. "The dogs Travel • Melanoma learned to sit or lie down in front of cancer Blogs Etc. patient samples and to ignore control samples Local News through the method of food reward," McCulloch RELATED STORIES | What's this? Newsweek explained. Multimedia • Missing gene linked to spread of cancer Story continues below ? Most Popular • Cancer deaths fall in US for first time

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1 of 4 2/18/2006 1:11 AM Dogs may be able to sniff out cancer - Cancer - MSNBC.com http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10822627/

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• Amsterdam red-light district hosts open house • Deadly strain of bird flu virus hits India, Advertisement France MSN SH OP PI NG • Storm kills 4 in Northeast, knocks out power • Davis walks his talk with gold in 1,000 meters • Bode's horrible Olympics continue in super-G After an extensive, though relatively short, • Most viewed on MSNBC.com Fitness ga dgets period of training, the McCulloch and his • Gadget guide colleagues tested the animals' ability to • HRM s distinguish cancer patients from controls. The MEDPAGE TODAY • Fat analy zers animals were given breath samples from 55 • Vitamin E Reduces Prostate • Mobile music patients with lung cancer, 31 with breast cancer Cancer Risk in Smokers and 83 healthy controls who were not included • Calcium Plus Vitamin D a Bust for Fractures and Colon in the original training sessions. Neither the Cancer dogs nor the observers knew the identity of the • ASBMT: Test May Predict Graft-vs.-Host samples. Risk in Bone Marrow Transplants • MRI Contrast Agent Enhances RELATED COVERAGE Chemotherapy's Cancer Killing

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McCulloch's group found that the dogs were able to correctly RESOURCE GUIDE distinguish the breath samples of cancer patients from the those of • Personals with the control subjects in about 90 percent of the cases, even after the PerfectMatch.com researchers adjusted the results to take into account whether the • Real Estate and lung cancer patients were smokers. The dogs were also capable of Mortgage • Buy Life detecting early-stage lung and breast cancers. Insurance • Shopping "These results show that there is hope for early detection," McCulloch said. The researchers are planning to conduct further studies on the breath composition of cancer patients to possibly design an electronic device that can do the dogs' job. "I hope people will be interested in pursuing this research," McCulloch added. "It shows that there is definitely something out there."

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2 of 4 2/18/2006 1:11 AM Dogs may be able to sniff out cancer - Cancer - MSNBC.com http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10822627/