1271 Man Friendly

For years men have had to endure the ministrations of the other Dr. DRE. DRE as in D-R-E-, as in Digital Rectal Exam. And not digital as in digital readout, but digital as in the original meaning of the word, with an actual manual digit.
The reason for this was to detect the abnormal swelling of a cancerous prostate. While the test helped develop a certain level of intimacy and trust between patient and physician, it was crude at best.
Performing Digital Rectal Exams is not unlike playing the didgeridoo, not every doctor has the touch.
So many people welcomed the “PSA test” with relief—a simple blood test detecting a chemical known as Prostate Specific Antigen.
Unfortunately, PSAs were notoriously unreliable, and negatively riddled with false positives. Suffice it to say there were, and are, many unnecessary surgeries thanks to PSAs.
So the newest thing on the medical horizon is heartening. In a recent test, this method was correct 64 out of 66 times. There were originally thought to be 3 false positives, but it turned out this method detected cancer in a guy who earlier tests had said was negative.
Now here’s the cool part. The test method used a sniffing dog. That’s right, man’s best friend to the rescue again.
“What’s that Lassie? Timmy’s in the well with a bad prostate?”
Yep, dogs can be trained to detect the cancer odor in a urine sample. And do it more accurately than current tests.
So next time that obnoxious neighbor’s dog comes up and starts sniffing you you-know-where, don’t get crotchety, maybe he’s trying to tell you something.
Medicine isn’t just about expensive equipment, and high tech cat scans.
A lowly dog scan can sniff out disease as well.
America, ya gotta love it.