New discovery about cancer detection ability of bees and dogs

Recently, scientists in the US said that recent studies have discovered that animals such as bees and dogs have the ability to detect cancer, opening up good opportunities to promptly treat this disease in its early stages.

Bees can use their super-sensitive sense of smell to smell lung cancer from a patient's breath, according to scientists at Michigan State University. "Our world is based on sight, but the insect world is completely based on smell. Bees' sense of smell is extremely accurate. Changes in the smell of breath occur when cancer develops in the body," said Dr. Debajit Saha, Assistant Professor of the school .

The study found that bees can detect lung cancer and other diseases by distinguishing the smell of cancer cells .

Honeybees are collecting pollen on trees. (Source: VNA).

To study this, scientists attached electrodes to the brains of bees before exposing them to a synthetic compound that mimicked the breath of a lung cancer patient. The bees were able to distinguish between the patient's breath and that of a healthy person with a probability of up to 93%. In addition, this insect species can also distinguish between different types of lung cancer.

The research results are expected to contribute to finding new methods for early detection of many cancers such as lung cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. Dr. Saha hopes to develop a system using electrodes implanted in the bee brain. When the patient exhales, sensors with a combination of the bee brain and technology will provide real-time results.

He believes that using breath-based diagnostics could revolutionize cancer detection. Because changes in breath odor occur in the early stages of tumor development, it could help in early diagnosis before the tumor gets worse. The bee brain-based system could be available within five years.

In addition to bee research, some scientists are also interested in dogs to detect cancer. Accordingly, a center at the University of Pennsylvania is training dogs to recognize odors related to cancer.

The dogs have a keen sense of smell and are used to interacting with humans in a familiar way, which helps them convey information effectively, said Cindy Otto, the centre's executive director. The dogs will live with foster families and come to the centre to 'work' every day.

Researcher Clara Wilson said that if some dogs are not interested, it cannot be forced because it will affect the quality of the results. Therefore, it is necessary to make their work a favorite game. Although detecting cancer may be a game for animals, researchers found that animals are better at detecting cancer than machines.

Some previous studies have shown that dogs' sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than humans . Researcher Amritha Mallikarjun said that dogs' sensitivity to smell is superior to devices currently on the market. Scientists hope to continue studying the properties of "cancer smell" to develop technologies that simulate dogs' ability to smell, contributing to early cancer detection. Ms. Otto emphasized the potential of using animals to research and improve methods for early detection of other diseases, not just cancer.