Health & Medicine

Want to know if you have cancer? Let these dogs smell your urine

A bomb-sniffing dog smells a bag during a security demonstration in New York. Researchers are training dogs to be able to detect cancer in human urine.
A bomb-sniffing dog smells a bag during a security demonstration in New York. Researchers are training dogs to be able to detect cancer in human urine. Associated Press file

A small Japanese city is set to use a unique method to help cancer patients.

WBAL TV in Baltimore reports that Kaneyama, a town of about 2,200 people, will be the home for a group of dogs that can detect cancer in humans by sniffing urine.

Specially trained dogs can smell odors that humans can’t detect and it has been reported that the dogs used in the exercise have been extremely accurate.

It’s an expensive science, though. It can cost about $45,000 to train each dog.

This story was originally published June 25, 2017 at 8:40 PM with the headline "Want to know if you have cancer? Let these dogs smell your urine."

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