Sniffing out skin cancer
Dogs aren’t the only ones trying to sniff out cancer.
Dr Andreas Mershin, who is based in America, has been travelling around New Zealand talking up his electronic nose.
The research scientist at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mershin saw the work that medical detection dogs in the UK were doing, detecting cancer in people by sniffing them.
‘‘If nature can do it, we can do it – there is nothing magical about the dogs. We just need to figure it out.’’
Mershin read a paper published in the British Medical Journal showing the dogs had a better strike rate than any hospital.
He set forth to create an even more reliable piece of equipment.
‘‘A dog can be distracted and has other things going on – just general living is one thing. So if we can have an electronic one, then all it concentrates on is finding cancer. Eventually, it could be better than a dog.’’
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in New Zealand with approximately 67,000 new skin cancer diagnoses each year – meaning it contributes to about 80 per cent of all new cancers every year.
‘‘If you can get skin cancer early enough, it’s a 30-minute procedure at the dermatologist office – you have liquid nitrogen and you go home.’’
What started off the size of a desktop computer is now small enough to fit into a smartphone.
He said they’ve had success in detecting cancer in a laboratory but it has not yet been tested on humans.
Mershin is only too aware what a product like this could do for people’s lives.
‘‘I want to have an impact on the world which is actually really not just the fact that I am publishing not just demonstrating something in the lab.
‘‘But something in the end that will save real lives, of real people including my own. I have kids and I get sunburnt and every time I go to the dermatologist he tells me the next one could be skin cancer.’’
Millions of dollars have been put into the research but it’s not ready to be used yet and Mershin doesn’t have a release date.
He would like it to have been available 10 years ago, but would like it as soon as possible.