by Ines Peros

Created on: August 12, 2007   Last Updated: October 15, 2007

Recently, in the news you may have heard of Oscar the Cat, who stays at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island. Oscar can predict a person's death is near or imminent and pays a visit to that person's bedside when the time gets nearer to death. How does he know this you ask?

The grim reaper cat is only 2 years old, and already is astounding medical researchers with his talented insight. As in some nursing homes that allow dogs and cats to visit the residents, they offer cheer and smiles to those who are old and sick and its is believed this enhances their outlook on life. Oscar's visit however, means more than we would want to know.

The Cancer diagnosis ability of dogs first appeared to be studied in 1989, and in early 2000 to 2001. It was then explored that dogs could detect bladder cancers, and melanomas as well, as lung and breast cancers.

Studies by The Pine Street Foundation, in San Anselmo, California by a group of Doctors Michael McCulloch, Tadeusz Jerzierski, Michael Broffman, and others have completed a Integrative Cancer Therapy study involving 83 patients, 55 lung cancer, and 32 breast cancer patients.

The study report was dated 2006, involved 5 dogs Labrador Retrievers and 2 Portuguese Water dogs and they utilized a reward based training method, where the dog's sniffed and identified the cancerous samples by sitting in front of the same sample. The results?

Quoted from the Sage Publications, on the study, available at: Sagejournal.com

" Among lung cancer patients and controls, overall sensitivity of canine scent detection compared to biopsy-confirmed conventional diagnosis was 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.99, 1.00) and overall specificity 0.99 (95% CI, 0.96, 1.00). Among breast cancer patients and controls, sensitivity was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.75, 1.00) and specificity 0.98 (95% CI, 0.90, 0.99). Sensitivity and specificity were remarkably similar across all 4 stages of both diseases. Conclusion: Training was efficient and cancer identification was accurate; in a matter of weeks, ordinary household dogs with only basic behavioural "puppy training"
were trained to accurately distinguish breath samples of lung
and breast cancer patients from those of controls".

Dogs: had a 95 percent accuracy compared to biopsy confirmed diagnosis.
They also in breast cancer patients and controls, their sensitivity was 95 percent, and for all 4 stages of both lung and breast cancer. This indicates that even if a cancer is in stage 1, their accuracy

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