Recently, scientists in the United States announced that recent studies have discovered that certain animals, such as bees and dogs, have the ability to detect cancer, opening up promising opportunities for timely treatment of this disease in its early stages.
According to researchers at Michigan State University, bees can utilize their highly sensitive sense of smell to detect lung cancer from a patient’s breath. Dr. Debajit Saha, an assistant professor at the university, stated: “Our world is based on vision, but the insect world is entirely based on smell. The sense of smell in bees is extremely accurate. Changes in odor in the breath occur when cancer develops in the body.”
The study indicated that bees can detect lung cancer and several other diseases by distinguishing the scent of cancer cells.
Honey bees collecting pollen from a tree. (Source: TTXVN).
For the research, scientists attached electrodes to the brains of bees before exposing them to a synthetic compound that mimics the breath of lung cancer patients. The probability of these bees distinguishing between the breath of a patient and that of a healthy individual reached 93%. Additionally, these insects could also differentiate between various types of lung cancer.
The research results are expected to contribute to finding new methods for early detection of multiple cancers, such as lung cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. Dr. Saha hopes to develop a system using electrodes implanted in bee brains. When patients exhale, sensors combining bee brain technology and advanced technology will provide real-time results.
He believes that using breath-based diagnostics could be revolutionary for cancer detection. Since changes in breath odor occur in the early stages of tumor development, this could enable early diagnosis before tumors evolve into more severe stages. The bee brain-based system could be implemented within the next five years.
In addition to research on bees, some scientists are also focusing on dogs for cancer detection. A center at the University of Pennsylvania is training dogs to recognize scents associated with cancer.
The center’s executive director, Cindy Otto, stated that dogs have an excellent sense of smell and interact with humans in a familiar way, allowing them to convey information effectively. The dogs involved in the program will live with foster families and come to the center to “work” daily.
Researcher Clara Wilson noted that if some dogs are not interested, they cannot be forced to participate, as this would affect the quality of results. Therefore, it is essential to make their tasks feel like a favorite game. While cancer detection may be a game for the animals, researchers have found that animals detect cancer better than machines.
Previous studies have shown that the sense of smell in dogs is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than that of humans. Researcher Amritha Mallikarjun stated that dogs’ sensitivity to smell surpasses existing devices on the market. Scientists hope to continue researching the characteristics of “cancer scent” to develop technologies that simulate dogs’ olfactory abilities, contributing to early cancer detection. Ms. Otto emphasized the potential of using animals for research to improve methods for early detection of other diseases, not just cancer.
