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% specificity and 60% sensitivity. This study paves the way for a larger scale research project designed to explore the use of canine scent detection as a tool for detecting cancer biomarkers, ultimately leading to their identification. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Current testing for the presence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 virus), which causes the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection, is typically reliant upon collection of nasal swab samples from subjects. These tests (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR] and antigen) are intrusive, can take significant time to process, and can give deleterious false negative and false positive results. Alternative methods for COVID-19 testing and screening are being studied, including the use of trained scent detection dogs to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with the COVID virus. In August 2020 and October 2020, the first author (T.D.) searched MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, and additional news articles using keyword phrases including “COVID scent dogs,” “COVID sniffer dogs,” and “COVID detection dog,” returning a total of 13 articles, nine of which were duplicates. Four remaining peer-reviewed studies dedicated to determining the feasibility and efficacy of detecting and screening individuals who may be infected by the COVID-19 virus with scent detection dogs were then examined. In this narrative review, the authors describe the methodologies and results of the remaining four studies, which demonstrated that the sensitivity, specificity, and overall success rates reported by the summarized scent detection studies are comparable to or better than the standard RT-PCR and antigen testing procedures, meaning that scent detection dogs can likely be effectively employed to nonintrusively screen and identify individuals infected with the COVID-19 virus in hospitals, senior care facilities, schools, universities, airports, and even large public gatherings for sporting events and concerts.

Context This review was undertaken to provide information concerning the advancement of research in the area of COVID-19 screening and testing during the worldwide pandemic from December 2019 through April 2023. In this review, we have examined the safety, effectiveness, and practicality of utilizing trained scent dogs in clinical and public situations for COVID-19 screening. Specifically, results of 29 trained scent dog screening peer-reviewed studies were compared with results of real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid antigen (RAG) COVID-19 testing methods. Objectives The review aims to systematically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of utilizing trained scent dogs in COVID-19 screening. Methods At the time of submission of our earlier review paper in August 2021, we found only four peer-reviewed COVID-19 scent dog papers: three clinical research studies and one preprint perspective paper. In March and April 2023, the first author conducted new literature searches of the MEDLINE/PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library websites. Again, the keyword phrases utilized for the searches included “COVID detection dogs,” “COVID scent dogs,” and “COVID sniffer dogs.” The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 Checklist was followed to ensure that our review adhered to evidence-based guidelines for reporting. Utilizing the results of the reviewed papers, we compiled statistics to intercompare and summarize basic information concerning the scent dogs and their training, the populations of the study participants, the types of sampling methods, the comparative tests utilized, and the effectiveness of the scent dog screening. Results A total of 8,043 references were identified through our literature search. After removal of duplicates, there were 7,843 references that were screened. Of these, 100 were considered for full-text eligibility, 43 were included for qualitative synthesis, and 29 were utilized for quantitative analysis. The most relevant peer-reviewed COVID-19 scent dog references were identified and categorized. Utilizing all of the scent dog results provided for this review, we found that 92.3 % of the studies reached sensitivities exceeding 80 and 32.0 % of the studies exceeding specificities of 97 %. However, 84.0 % of the studies reported specificities above 90 %. Highlights demonstrating the effectiveness of the scent dogs include: (1) samples of breath, saliva, trachea-bronchial secretions and urine as well as face masks and articles of clothing can be utilized; (2) trained COVID-19 scent dogs can detect presymptomatic and asymptomatic patients; (3) scent dogs can detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants and Long COVID-19; and (4) scent dogs can differentiate SARS-CoV-2 infections from infections with other novel respiratory viruses. Conclusions The effectiveness of the trained scent dog method is comparable to or in some cases superior to the real-time RT-PCR test and the RAG test. Trained scent dogs can be effectively utilized to provide quick (seconds to minutes), nonintrusive, and accurate results in public settings and thus reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus or other viruses. Finally, scent dog research as described in this paper can serve to increase the medical community’s and public’s knowledge and acceptance of medical scent dogs as major contributors to global efforts to fight diseases.

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% specificity and 60% sensitivity. This study paves the way for a larger scale research project designed to explore the use of canine scent detection as a tool for detecting cancer biomarkers, ultimately leading to their identification.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.