{"id":762,"date":"2026-09-08T20:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/health.dzwonkinatelefon.net\/can-dogs-sniff-cancer-ai-joins-the-hunt-in-india\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T20:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:20:16","slug":"can-dogs-sniff-cancer-ai-joins-the-hunt-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/?p=762","title":{"rendered":"Can dogs sniff cancer? AI joins the hunt in India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When rescue dog Chloe is not tumbling across the grass on a farm outside India’s tech capital Bengaluru, she is learning to sniff human breath for cancer with a little help from AI.<\/p>\n

Fitted with a 3D-printed helmet and harness packed with sensors, Chloe is part of experimental efforts to use dogs’ extraordinary sense of smell to develop a non-invasive test for the disease.<\/p>\n

A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses, from Parkinson’s to Covid-19.<\/p>\n

The Bengaluru-based startup Dognosis is using AI to analyse dogs’ brain activity, respiration and body language, turning their reaction to scent into data.<\/p>\n

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“In an hour, they can do thousands of sniffs,” co-founder Akash Kulgod, 26, told AFP. “Each sniff can evaluate a sample.”<\/p>\n

Dognosis hopes to launch commercially next year, which it says would make it the third company of its kind, after firms from Germany and Israel.<\/p>\n

Early detection can make a crucial difference to cancer survival rates, but in India many patients are diagnosed only after the disease has advanced.<\/p>\n

Dog sniffs could provide an easy and affordable first layer of screening to be deployed at scale, finding potential cases for further testing.<\/p>\n

As it chases commercial approval, Dognosis, backed by venture-capital firms including Accel India, is collaborating with government medical institutions for its research.<\/p>\n

Chloe, a Labrador mix, is one of 15 dogs being coached by the startup, clad in customised data-gathering helmets.<\/p>\n

“It’s like a doggy ‘Iron Man’ suit,” said Kulgod, who comes from a family of doctors and studied cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Research suggests diseases can alter the chemicals released by the body, creating distinctive odours.<\/p>\n

Dogs have around 300 million scent receptors, compared to about five million in humans.<\/p>\n

The testing method is simple: a patient breathes into a cotton mask for about 10 minutes, and the mask is then sealed in a bag and taken to the lab. Patients do not meet the dogs.<\/p>\n

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A recent Dognosis study of more than 1,500 participants, involving six hospitals in Karnataka state, was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.<\/p>\n

The company said it achieved an accuracy rate of more than 90 percent across seven major types of cancer, and now plans to test in real-world programmes.<\/p>\n

Cancer specialists in Bengaluru independent of the project voiced cautious optimism.<\/p>\n

“The study is promising, as an early signal,” said Santhosh Kumar Devadas, head of oncology at Ramaiah Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

“But they need to do the study with a much larger group before we make any definitive conclusions.”<\/p>\n

Neelesh Reddy, a senior consultant oncologist at Manipal Hospitals, told AFP that “only time will tell how this technology will be useful to the actual patients”.<\/p>\n

India has described cancer as a major public health concern, saying one in nine of its 1.4 billion people are likely to develop the disease.<\/p>\n

Dognosis says it aims to improve “proactive and preventative medicine” while boosting “human-canine communication”.<\/p>\n

Most of the dogs are beagles, along with some Malinois and Shepherd mixes, brought on board through adoption or legal breeders.<\/p>\n

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But only the best are selected, said Kulgod. The dog team individually lists each animal on the company website as an official “sniffer”, alongside their photographs.<\/p>\n

All have a great “work-life balance”, with work time limited to around 30-45 minutes a day, he added.<\/p>\n

At a centre called “Sniffspace”, dogs test human samples on platforms equipped with automatic feeders dispensing dog treats.<\/p>\n

Kulgod’s co-founder Itamar Bitan, 28, who spent four years in an Israeli special-forces canine unit, said the dogs were trained using “positive reinforcement” to detect a “specific funky smell” for a reward.<\/p>\n

“Some of the dogs run directly to the feeder expecting rewards, some dogs freeze, some dogs will scratch the sample with excitement,” Bitan said.<\/p>\n

“But, as long as the machine that learns how the dogs react to the sample is very consistent… we don’t really mind.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A growing body of global research suggests dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other human illnesses, from Parkinson’s to Covid-19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthcare.hibisports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}