The Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia discovered their trained dogs have successfully sniffed cancer on women, ABC News reported.
One of the dogs participating in a continuing study at the center, named Ohlin Frank, has sniffed out every case of ovarian cancer tissue so far.
The University of Pennsylvania study was created by scientists who want to find a chemical footprint that may lead to saving lives through earlier detection of cancer. At the moment, 15 dogs take part in the research project. It is hoped that their sense of smell can help find drugs, missing people, explosives, and now possibly ovarian cancer.
According to the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, an estimated 22,240 new cases of ovarian cancer will pop up in the United States in 2013 and 14,030 American women will die as a result.
Ovarian cancer has the highest mortality rate of all gynecologic cancers, partially due to the lack of early detection, Allicance reported.
"All dogs are really good at sniffing, but part of what gives them a huge advantage over us is the surface area of the olfactory receptors," said Cynthia M. Otto, founder of the center and director of the study.
Otto hopes that in two years, the dogs will be trained to sniff out a specific odor so scientists can perform a new type of blood test, more affordable and less invasive than the current ones, to catch the deadly disease while there's still a chance at treating it.
Students at Penn contributing to the research study created a wheel device with paint cans at the end of each spoke, with only one of the cans containing cancerous tissue.
In the past, cancers of the breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, and skin have been detected by dogs. Additionally, two dogs from the Penn study have been assisting people with Diabetes by alerting them when their sugar levels are too high or low.
