Accuracy of Canine Scent Detection of Lung Cancer in Blood Serum

Canines are able to differentiate between serum samples taken from cancer patients and samples taken from normal controls. This study further supports the use of dogs as biomedical research tools for detection of cancer biomarkers. In particular, this study was designed to determine the accuracy of canines’ ability to detect, by scent alone, lung cancer biomarkers in blood serum. Operant conditioning was used in the form of clicker training to train four beagles to distinguish, by scent alone, blood serum from malignant lung cancer patients when presented along with healthy controls in a double-blind format. Non-small cell lung cancer and healthy control blood serum samples were presented to 2-year-old beagles. Three dogs were able to correctly identify the cancer samples with a sensitivity of 96.7%, specificity of 97.5%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 90.6% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 99.2%. One of the dogs, Snuggles, was unmotivated to perform during training and tested with 80% specifici...