• Question: do dogs sense cancer? how

    Asked by dean521towy to sandrarobertson, Samet, konstantina_k, charlotteslade, Amal on 12 May 2025.
    • Photo: Sandra Robertson

      Sandra Robertson answered on 12 May 2025:

      Dogs have a highly sensitive sense of smell, able to detect many things we simply can’t with our own sense of smell. Think about dog companions used to alert owners to an on coming seizure – it is the change in the person’s internal chemistry that the dog is able to detect to raise the alarm, that allows the owner to get themselves to a safe space. If a dog can be trained to do that, then I believe they can be trained to detect some forms of cancer in the same way, when there is a subtle change in a persons chemistry (smell)

    • Photo: Charlotte Slade

      Charlotte Slade answered on 2 Jul 2025: last edited 3 Jul 2025 1:20 PM

      YES, they can!

      It all comes down to their incredible sense of smell. It’s like a whole-species superpower that is thousands, or even millions, of times better than ours.

      Here’s a quick look into how they do it:

      1. Everyone Has a Unique “Smell-Print”
      Think of it this way: your body is constantly releasing tiny, invisible chemical particles into the air in your breath, your sweat, and your pee. These particles create a unique “smell-print,” a bit like a fingerprint but for smells.

      Healthy cells in your body release one type of smell-print. But cancer cells, because they grow and work differently, release a different set of these chemical particles.
      (The science word for these is Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs).

      2. A Dog’s Nose is an Unbelievable Instrument
      Now, a human nose would never notice this tiny difference. It’s far too faint for us. But a dog’s nose is one of the most sensitive instruments on the entire planet.

      To give you an idea of how powerful it is: imagine two Olympic-sized swimming pools. A dog’s nose is so sensitive it could detect one teaspoon of sugar dissolved in all that water. It’s mind-bogglingly powerful.

      Because of this superpower, some dogs can be trained to spot the unique “smell-print” of cancer cells. They can sniff a person’s breath or a urine sample and pick out the one that smells “wrong” or different from the healthy ones.

      So, the big question for scientists and engineers like me is…

      If a dog can do this naturally, can we build a machine that does the same thing?

      This is a huge area of research right now. My work is in building instruments that can identify chemicals, so this is a perfect example of what my field tries to do. Scientists are working hard to create an “Electronic Nose” – a machine with super-sensitive sensors that can “smell” someone’s breath and detect the specific VOCs for cancer, hopefully catching it much earlier than we can now.

      So, while you won’t see “cancer-sniffing dogs” in every hospital just yet (it’s still mostly in the research stage), they are the inspiration for a whole new generation of life-saving technology. It’s a perfect example of how we can learn from the amazing abilities of animals to create the future of medicine.

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