They’re known as man’s best friend; but dogs could soon also be their greatest ally in the fight against prostate cancer. Britain’s National Health Service recently approved a trial for cancer sniffing dogs in the hope that it could show up inaccuracies in the current PSA (prostate specific antigen) test.

It’s long been known that a dog’s remarkable sense of smell can detect minute odors known to be associated with many cancers which are understood to be linked to volatile organic compounds produced by malignant cells.

“Dogs have got this fantastic sense of smell; three-hundred million sensory receptors, us humans have five million. So they’re very, very good at finding minute odors. What we now know is that cancer cells that are dividing differently have different volatile organic compounds — smelly compounds — that are associated with the cells. And dogs with their incredible sense of small can find these in things like breath and urine,” said Dr. Claire Guest who co-founded charity Medical Detection Dogs in 2008 to train specialist dogs to detect human diseases.

Read the article “Cancer Sniffing Dogs Aid British Doctors” on reuters.com.