Accuracy of Canine Scent Detection of Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer in Blood Serum (original) (raw)
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Diagnostic Accuracy of Canine Scent Detection in Early and Late-Stage Lung and Breast Cancers
Background: Lung and breast cancers are leading causes of cancer death worldwide. Prior exploratory work has shown that patterns of biochemical markers have been found in the exhaled breath of patients with lung and breast cancers that are distinguishable from those of controls. However, chemical analysis of exhaled breath has not shown suitability for individual clinical diagnosis. Methods: The authors used a food reward-based method of training 5 ordinary household dogs to distinguish, by scent alone, exhaled breath samples of 55 lung and 31 breast cancer patients from those of 83 healthy controls. A correct indication of cancer samples by the dogs was sitting/lying in front of the sample. A correct response to control samples was to ignore the sample. The authors first trained the dogs in a 3-phase sequential process with gradually increasing levels of challenge. Once trained, the dogs' ability to distinguish cancer patients from controls was then tested using breath samples from subjects not previously encountered by the dogs. The researchers blinded both dog handlers and experimental observers to the identity of breath samples. The diagnostic accuracy data reported were obtained solely from the dogs' sniffing, in double-blinded conditions, of these breath samples obtained from subjects not previously encountered by the dogs during the training period. Results: Among lung cancer patients and controls, overall sensitivity of canine scent detection compared to biopsy-confirmed conventional diagnosis was 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.99, 1.00) and overall specificity 0.99 (95% CI, 0.96, 1.00). Among breast cancer patients and controls, sensitivity was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.75, 1.00) and specificity 0.98 (95% CI, 0.90, 0.99). Sensitivity and specificity were remarkably similar across all 4 stages of both diseases. Conclusion: Training was efficient and cancer identification was accurate; in a matter of weeks, ordinary household dogs with only basic behavioral "puppy training" were trained to accurately distinguish breath samples of lung and breast cancer patients from those of controls. This pilot work using canine scent detection demonstrates the validity of using a biological system to examine exhaled breath in the diagnostic identification of lung and breast cancers. Future work should closely examine the chemistry of exhaled breath to identify which chemical compounds can most accurately identify the presence of cancer.
Canine scent detection in the diagnosis of lung cancer: revisiting a puzzling phenomenon
European Respiratory Journal, 2012
Patient prognosis in lung cancer largely depends on early diagnosis. The exhaled breath of patients may represent the ideal specimen for future lung cancer screening. However, the clinical applicability of current diagnostic sensor technologies based on signal pattern analysis remains incalculable due to their inability to identify a clear target. To test the robustness of the presence of a so far unknown volatile organic compound in the breath of patients with lung cancer, sniffer dogs were applied. Exhalation samples of 220 volunteers (healthy individuals, confirmed lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)) were presented to sniffer dogs following a rigid scientific protocol. Patient history, drug administration and clinicopathological data were analysed to identify potential bias or confounders. Lung cancer was identified with an overall sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 93%. Lung cancer detection was independent from COPD and the presence of tobacco smoke and food odours. Logistic regression identified two drugs as potential confounders. It must be assumed that a robust and specific volatile organic compound (or pattern) is present in the breath of patients with lung cancer. Additional research efforts are required to overcome the current technical limitations of electronic sensor technologies to engineer a clinically applicable screening tool.
Background. On the basis of our own experience and literature search, we hypothesised that a canine olfactory test may be useful for detecting lung cancer in an unselected population of patients suspected to have lung cancer. Material and methods. We conducted a prospective study of 93 patients consecutively admitted to hospital with suspected lung cancer. Exhaled breath and urine were sampled before the patients underwent bronchoscopy. The canine olfactory test was performed in a double-blinded manner. Sensitivity and specifi city were outcome measures. Results. With 99% sensitivity, the olfactory test demonstrated that dogs have the ability to distinguish cancer patients from healthy individuals. With an intensifi ed training procedure, the exhaled breath and urine tests showed sensitivity rates of 56 – 76% and specifi city rates of 8.3 – 33.3%, respectively, in our heterogeneous study population. Conclusion. Although the olfactory test appears to be a promising tool for the detection of cancer, the main challenge is to determine whether the test can suffi ciently discriminate between patients at risk, patients with benign disease, and patients with malignant disease. We need to gain a deeper understanding of this test and further refi ne it before applying it as a screening tool for lung cancer in clinical settings.
Canine scent detection of human cancers: A review of methods and accuracy
Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 2010
Early detection of cancers, although essential for treatment effectiveness, can be difficult to achieve, and some tests introduce additional health risks. New, non-invasive detection methods with greater sensitivity and specificity are needed. Several authors have published research suggesting that dogs may be able to detect lung, breast, prostate, ovarian, and melanoma cancers by smelling skin lesions, urine, exhaled breath, and surgically extracted tumors. We conducted a systematic search using the PubMed and EMBASE databases to identify all known published data on canine scent detection of cancers. Of 531 potentially relevant publications, 11 full text articles were examined, and 5 were selected for inclusion in the review. Two studies involved dogs detecting breast cancer (sensitivity 88% using exhaled breath and 22% using urine; specificity was 98% and 20%, respectively), 1 involved bladder cancer (41% of urine samples detected), 1 involved melanoma (75-85.7% of in situ tumors detected), 1 involved lung cancer (sensitivity 99% and specificity 99% using exhaled breath), 1 involved ovarian cancer (sensitivity 100% and specificity 97.5% using thawed frozen tumor samples), and 1 involved prostate cancer (18% of urine samples detected). One study on ovarian cancer is in progress. Early successes with canine scent detection suggest chemical analysis of exhaled breath may be a valid method for cancer detection. Tests using exhaled breath showed better sensitivity and specificity than with urine. Future research should target other tumor types, and seek to identify what exhaled compounds may signal a cancer diagnosis.
Canine olfactory detection of cancer versus laboratory testing: myth or opportunity?
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, 2000
According to the most recent global cancer statistics, the burden of malignancies continues to increase worldwide, so that there is a compelling need to reinforce the screening strategies and implement novel diagnostic approaches for early detection. Canines are widely used by police forces and civilian services for detecting explosives and drugs due to their superior olfactive apparatus, which is characterized by a detection threshold as low as parts per trillion. There is mounting evidence that dogs might be effectively trained to detect patients with various form of cancers due to the presence of a characteristic ''odor signature''. In particular, preliminary studies reported that appropriately trained dogs exhibit an extraordinary ability to detect melanoma as well as prostate, breast, ovary and lung cancers by recognizing a characteristic ''odor signature'' in body, urines, sweat, breath and even blood. The most problematic issue that has emerged so far is the large heterogeneity of performance across the different studies as well as within the same study, which might be dependent upon genetic characteristics or training methodology. This article is aimed to provide an overview of the available data on cancer sniffer dogs, highlighting the appealing perspectives and the potential drawbacks.
Is It Possible to Detect Lung Cancer by Trained Dogs?
Health Problems of Civilization, 2015
During the illness are released volatile organic compounds with specific smell which could have in diagnosis of diseases. The first aim of the study was qualitative and quantitative analysis of exhaled breath samples obtained from patients with lung cancer, healthy volunteers and people with other lung diseases by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. This study showed that twenty compounds propane, ethanol, isobutane, butane, propanal, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, 2-methylfuran, 2-butanone, benzene, 2-pentanone, pentanal, hexanal, cyclohexanone, 4-heptanone, 2,4-dimethylheptane, 2,3,4-trimethylhexane, 2,3,5-trimethylhexane, 4-methyloctane, α-pinene separated two research groups of patients and healthy controls. The second goal was to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of canine scent detection using 5 station scent lineup. Among lung cancer patients and complementary samples, overall sensitivity of canine scent detection was 85.54%, while specificity was 71.84%.
Sniffer dogs can identify lung cancer patients from breath and urine samples
BMC Cancer, 2021
Background Lung cancer is the most common oncological cause of death in the Western world. Early diagnosis is critical for successful treatment. However, no effective screening methods exist. A promising approach could be the use of volatile organic compounds as diagnostic biomarkers. To date there are several studies, in which dogs were trained to discriminate cancer samples from controls. In this study we evaluated the abilities of specifically trained dogs to distinguish samples derived from lung cancer patients of various tumor stages from matched healthy controls. Methods This single center, double-blind clinical trial was approved by the local ethics committee, project no FF20/2016. The dog was conditioned with urine and breath samples of 36 cancer patients and 150 controls; afterwards, further 246 patients were included: 41 lung cancer patients comprising all stages and 205 healthy controls. From each patient two breath and urine samples were collected and shock frozen. Only ...
2014
Key considerations for the experimental training and evaluation of cancer odour detection dogs: lessons learnt from a double-blind, controlled trial of prostate cancer detection Responses to Reviewer's Comments Dear Prof Kassouf and colleagues, Thank you for inviting us to submit a revised version of the above paper. We found the reviewers' comments very thoughtful and helpful, and we thank the referees for taking the time to provide such detailed and useful feedback to help improve the manuscript. We now deal with each of the two referees' comments in turn: REVIEWERS' COMMENTS Please note: all page references refer to the clean (untracked) version unless stated. Reviewer #1: Comment 1.1 The study is well conducted and the statistical analyses are sound. Taking together the hypotheses and the results, I believe that the manuscript is almost ready for publication. Response 1.1: Thank you for these supportive comments.
Canine Scent Detection of Volatile Elements, Characteristic of Malignant Cells, in Cell Cultures
The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 2015
In recent years several reports have been published describing dogs' ability to detect, by scent, patients with cancer. This ability is based on the sniffing of volatile organic elements that are secreted by malignant cells or react to them. To evaluate the ability of trained dogs to detect breast cancer cell cultures (MCF7) compared to the control pseudo-normal keratinocyte cell line (HaCaT), and to detect melanoma (BG) and type 2 epithelial lung carcinoma (A549) malignant cell cultures to which they were not previously exposed in the course of their training. Cell cultures were prepared in a standard manner. Two Belgian Shepherd dogs were trained and then tested in a single-blind test (for dogs and trainers) on their ability to detect the "target specimen," a MCF7 breast cancer cell culture. Following this, the ability of the dogs to detect cancer cell cultures that they were not previously exposed to (i.e., A549, BG) was tested. In each test round, four specimens pl...