Dec.
13, 2012 — Dogs can sniff out Clostridium difficile (the
infective agent that is responsible for many of the dreaded "hospital
acquired infections") in stool samples and even in the air surrounding
patients in hospital with a very high degree of accuracy, finds a study in the
Christmas issue published on bmj.com today.
The
findings support previous studies of dogs detecting various types of cancer and
could have great potential for screening hospital wards to help prevent C.
difficile outbreaks, say the researchers.
C. difficile infection most commonly occurs in
older people who have recently had a course of antibiotics in hospital, but it
can also start in the community, especially in care homes. Symptoms can range
from mild diarrhoea to a life-threatening inflammation of the bowel.
Early
detection is vital to prevent transmission, but diagnostic tests can be
expensive and slow, which can delay treatment for up to a week.
Diarrhoea
due to C. difficile has a specific smell, and dogs have a superior
sense of smell compared with humans. This prompted researchers in the
Netherlands to investigate whether a dog could be trained to detect C.
difficile.
A
two-year old male beagle (called Cliff) was trained by a professional
instructor to identify C. difficile in stool samples and in patients
with C. difficile infection. He was taught to indicate the presence
of the specific scent by sitting or lying down.
The
dog had not been trained for detection purposes before.
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