研究稱狗狗能準確嗅出肺癌

A dog can accurately detect the early presence of lung cancer by sniffing patients’ breath, doctors in Germany say. While researchers have known for some time that dogs can sniff out the telltale signs of other forms of cancer, this is the first study that proves dogs can reliably smell this particular kind。

This is a breakthrough for lung cancer researchers who have been trying to figure out if there are specific volatile organic compounds associated with the presence of the disease. The dog study suggests that there are。

Researchers at Schillerhoehe Hospital in Germany worked with specially trained dogs who were asked to smell the breath of 220 volunteers. The group included healthy patients, as well as people with lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease。

狗能準確嗅聞出肺癌

The dogs correctly identified 71 positive lung cancer samples out of a possible 100, the researchers write in the European Respiratory Journal. They also correctly identified 372 non-cancerous samples out of a possible 400.

What’s interesting about this is that the dogs were able to detect cancer even in the presence of other factors, like tobacco smoke and COPD. Current lab tests for lung cancer can't do this。

This suggests that there is indeed a VOC associated directly with lung cancer, which can be detected — at least by a dog — even in the presence of other compounds。據美國《大衆科學》8月19日報道，德國醫生說，狗通過嗅聞病人的氣息能準確地探查到早期肺癌的跡象。雖然研究人員已經知道狗可以聞出其他種類癌症的蛛絲馬跡，而這卻是首個證明狗能準確嗅聞出肺癌的研究。

這對肺癌研究人員來說是一項突破。研究人員一直試圖弄明白，是否存在同肺癌相關的某些特殊的易揮發有機化合物。而對狗的這項研究表明，這種化合物的確存在。

德國席勒赫厄醫院的研究人員讓經過特殊訓練的狗嗅聞220名志願者的氣息。這些志願者包括健康人、肺癌患者和患有慢性阻塞性肺病的人。

研究人員在《歐洲呼吸學雜誌》上撰文說，狗能在100個樣本中正確辨認出71例陽性肺癌樣本。狗還能在400個樣本中正確辨認出372個非癌症樣本。

有趣的是，狗甚至能在其他因素(例如菸草煙霧和慢性阻塞性肺病)存在的情況下探查出癌症。目前實驗室對肺癌的檢測尚不能做到這點。

這意味着確實存在直接同肺癌相聯繫的揮發性有機化合物。這種化合物甚至在同其他化合物混合的情況下都能被探測到——至少狗能做到。