By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor 24 September 2004
Dogs can sniff out cancer, adding a new dimension to the image of man's best friend, according to research published today. Doctors writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) have presented the first scientific evidence of the canine's ability to put its exceptional sense of smell to good use in detecting tumours.
Tumours are thought to produce volatile organic compounds with a distinctive odour, but often in quantities too small for humans to detect.
For years, doctors have discussed anecdotes about patients who turned up in the surgery worried about a skin blemish or a mole after their pet dog kept licking or nuzzling it, which turned out to be cancer.
Now research has indicated that the canine sense of smell, said to be 1,000 times better than the human one, can indeed pick out malignancies.
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