Not sure if it will ever be practicable to use them as a diagnostic tool, but an interesting piece of research
Re: Labradors trained to sniff out lung cancer I keep reading research about dogs sniffing out cancer and they always cite cost and time to train dogs as a barrier yet go on to spend humungus sums trying to find an artifcial way to identify what dogs can already identify! I once saw a documentary on the topic and the dog sniffed a 5 year old breath sample and correctly identified that it was from a cancer sufferer. The chap they interviewed from Cancer Research UK was so dismissive and obnoxious as if the dogs were doing some kind of parlour trick rather than potentially being the means to save lives it changed my view of the organisation which wasn't that positive already. We already know a lot about how much sniffer dogs can do before they need to rest. I wonder how many samples a dog could test reliably a day, leading to how many early interventions that could result in saved lives and extremely expensive treatment compared to the cost of training and a salary in kibble and a tennis ball or two?
Re: Labradors trained to sniff out lung cancer It does seem a shame that more progress has not been made. Presumably the success rate (70%) is just not high enough yet. Though it looks as though they may be working on using dogs for detecting those 'at risk' now rather than simply diagnosing those that are already sick. This would a great breakthrough and a lower success rate not quite such a potential disaster. Pippa
