The world is a wonderful place. As technology grows, we find new ingenious ways to deal with it. One of those ways is to make it possible to detect cancer with a dog’s sense of smell.
Technology is growing rapidly. Now there’s the chance that dogs can help with the growth of tech to detect cancer.
ABC News reports that researchers are looking for ways to use dogs and tech to help with the detection of cancer. We can thank superior sense of smell that dogs have to do this — and if you’ve watched Outlander, you’ve seen this in action. It turns out that blood plasma in cancer patients may just have something to sniff out.
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So far, researchers have managed to place the blood plasma from cancer patients into canisters. Pups have then been tasked with finding out which one of eight canisters has the blood from the patients.
Don’t worry! There won’t be dogs in the doctor’s offices! The idea is that scientists will use the information from dogs to create an electronic nose. When a pet can sense a certain type of cancer, there’s hope the scientists will find a way for the tech to do the same. Dogs are just confirming that the tech is working.
This is something that could save lives. By being able to sniff out the disease, it would be possible to detect it at earlier stages. This makes it possible to get treatment earlier, improving the chances of survival. For example, it’s only possible to detect ovarian cancer in later stages right now. The technology could make it possible to sniff out the cancer at Stage 1, immediately saving lives.
Have you ever considered dogs being able to sniff out cancer? Share your thoughts in the comments below.