Material and Methods Tumors

1However, when tested under the above mentioned cir-cumstances, the dogs may have detected and responded to odors differing from that of normal skin or odors directly or indirectly associated with cancer, such as inflammation, necrosis, or metabolic products that often exist in patients, especially those with advanced disease, rather than specifically to cancer itself. Thus, it is important to ascertain whether or not human cancers are characterized by specific odors. We hypothesized that if ovarian carcinoma has some specific odor, dogs may be trained to detect it. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibili-ties to train dogs to differentiate human ovarian cancer from healthy samples and, hopefully, from other gynecol-ogical carcinomas