# 96 Dogs Sniffing To Detect Cancer

The Erickson Tribune.
Dogs trained in cancer-sniffing. Smell has often been a warning sign of illness: Hippocrates-the father of modern medicine-described the fruity odor of diabetes in the breath.Now scientists are using dogs' enhanced sense of smell test for various types of cancer. Dogs are being tested for their ability to detect melanoma on the skin, breast cancer in breath, and prostate cancer in urine. In one trial, British scientists trained dogs to sniff for bladder cancer in 54 samples of human urine. They were about 41% accurate: not a very high accuracy rate, but high enough to have experts interested. One of the main reasons for the interest is to use dogs as cancer detectors in poor countries, where CT scans and even Pap smears are unavailable.