There are several stories about dogs which prove that the animal is certainly the best friend of human race. Dogs not only provide good company, but many trained pets also help security agencies by sniffing bombs and illegal drugs. A new study on thyroid cancer proves that besides sniffing drugs and bombs, dogs can help humans by smelling diseases such as thyroid cancer.

The study was conducted in Little Rock, Arkansas. While studying thyroid cancer, a group of researchers has been getting help from a German shepherd dog, Frankie. As per reports of American Cancer Society, the uncommon type of cancer affects more than 60,000 people in the United States every year. Out of them, about 1,900 patients die annually. Due to effective screening and detection, the survival rate is very high. Today, ultrasound has become an affective technique to spot small nodules.

In the presence of tumors, doctors usually prescribe the patient for a biopsy to find out if they are malignant or benign. But, there are possibilities in some cases that the results will be unclear. In those cases, the patients could be subjected to more painful tests. While trying to discover another way to increase the accuracy of results, the researchers came to know that dogs could be helpful in thyroid cancer detection.

In the past, researchers conducted several studies on cancer, which showed the benefits of dogs and their ability to sniff cancer. The dogs were found smelling melanoma and breast cancer. The studies had not indicated that dogs could do the same thing with thyroid cancer.

During the latest study, the researchers exposed Frankie to smell of thyroid cancer. They trained him to lie down and let him smell cancer. Out of 34 samples, Frankie correctly detected 32, which means Frankie’s accuracy level was 90%.