Cancer-Sniffing Dogs: Health Story
Aired on Superstation WGN
Saturday, October 8 and December 31, 2005
Show 226
"These dogs live with us," says Dianne Walker, research assistant at the Florida Sensory Research Institute where man's best friend is being trained to sniff out cancer. "'Rebel' is a pointer and they're hunting dogs. So he naturally wants to find things," says Dianne.
"A dog's sense of smell is 10,000-100,000 times more sensitive than a human's," says Jim Walker PhD, director of the institute. Dogs have 25 times more olfactory receptors than humans. "We hope to use dogs to smell bladder and prostrate cancer. Humans have chemicals that are unique in appreciable amounts when cancer is present," says Jim, who became intrigued after he participated in a study where dogs were able to sniff out melanomas on skin surfaces.
From California to England, researchers are seeing promising results. Dr. Trib Vats, Chairman of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the Backus Children's Hospital, says, "No child should die from cancer. We need to keep an open mind. If cancer is found way before it becomes clinically evident, than cancer is much easier to treat."
"My hope is that our dogs can successfully detect cancer earlier," says Dianne.