Using Dog Scent Detection as a Point-of-Care Tool to Identify Toxigenic Clostridium difficile in Stool

Taylor, Maureen; McCready, Janine; Broukhanski, George; Kirpalaney, Sakshi; Lutz, Haydon; Powis, Jeff

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofy179

Cited by 29 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The use of animals is now appearing in therapeutic settings, such as emergency departments [82], acute and hospice care [83,84], and elementary schools [42,85]. An ever-expanding area is the use of animals to prevent or diagnose health issues, such as detecting pathogens in the environment [86,87] or diagnosing cancers [88,89,90].…”

Section: The Need For Research and Evidence: Connecting The Dots Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

The State of Animal-Assisted Interventions: Addressing the Contemporary Issues That Will Shape the Future

Fine

Beck

2019

IJERPH

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As the worldwide popularity of animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) increases, the field is quickly approaching a paradigm shift, adjusting its image to incorporate more evidence-based research and aligning its purpose for advancing a new future. Contemporary critical issues that confront the field today include, but are not limited, to research, animal welfare, practice guidelines, and public policy. This article will provide an overview of the history of AAI and the major milestones that the field has undergone. The current state of AAI research will be scrutinized, and the areas that warrant further study will be recommended. Special attention will be given to the current state of animal welfare in AAI, the research that has been done in the area, and practice guidelines that safeguard animal wellbeing. This article will then discuss how evidence-based research and animal welfare guidelines inform the development of comprehensive professional standards and influence changes in public policy regarding AAI. The authors’ perceptions for the field’s future trajectory will be presented, which will include solutions to move the field in the direction that best advances the human-animal bond in research, practice, and public perception.

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Section: The Need For Research and Evidence: Connecting The Dots Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

The State of Animal-Assisted Interventions: Addressing the Contemporary Issues That Will Shape the Future

Fine

Beck

2019

IJERPH

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“…Several studies have proven the canines’ extraordinary olfactory acuity to detect persons with infectious and non-infectious diseases like different types of cancer [ 2 ], malaria [ 3 ], bacterial, and viral infections [ 4 – 6 ], with usually high rates of sensitivity and specificity [ 7 ]. A pathogen-specific odour that can be detected by dogs may be composed of specific patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scent dog identification of samples from COVID-19 patients – a pilot study

et al. 2020

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Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, early, ideally real-time, identification of SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals is pivotal in interrupting infection chains. Volatile organic compounds produced during respiratory infections can cause specific scent imprints, which can be detected by trained dogs with a high rate of precision. Methods: Eight detection dogs were trained for 1 week to detect saliva or tracheobronchial secretions of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients in a randomised, double-blinded and controlled study. Results: The dogs were able to discriminate between samples of infected (positive) and non-infected (negative) individuals with average diagnostic sensitivity of 82.63% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 82.02-83.24%) and specificity of 96.35% (95% CI: 96.31-96.39%). During the presentation of 1012 randomised samples, the dogs achieved an overall average detection rate of 94% (±3.4%) with 157 correct indications of positive, 792 correct rejections of negative, 33 incorrect indications of negative or incorrect rejections of 30 positive sample presentations. Conclusions: These preliminary findings indicate that trained detection dogs can identify respiratory secretion samples from hospitalised and clinically diseased SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals by discriminating between samples from SARS-CoV-2 infected patients and negative controls. This data may form the basis for the reliable screening method of SARS-CoV-2 infected people.

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“…The reward was given in <10 seconds. The results obtained separately showed sensitivities of 77.6% and 92.6%, and specificities of 86.1% and 84.5%, for each dog, respectively, after testing 300 samples, with one-third being C. difficile positive [8]. However, the inter-rater reliability between dogs was modest (Cohen's k ¼ 0.52) [8].…”

Section: Dogs and C Difficile Diarrhoeamentioning

confidence: 94%

“…A food reward was used for true-positive results. In another study, two dogs (a German shepherd and a border collieepointer mix) were similarly trained and compared [8] (photos and video available at https:// academic.oup.com/ofid/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/ofid/ ofy179#supplementary-data). The reward was given in <10 seconds.…”

Section: Dogs and C Difficile Diarrhoeamentioning

confidence: 99%

Sniffing animals as a diagnostic tool in infectious diseases

Cambau¹,

Poljak²

2020

Clinical Microbiology and Infection

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Background: Scents and odours characterize some microbes when grown in the laboratory, and experienced clinicians can diagnose patients with some infectious diseases based on their smell. Animal sniffing is an innate behaviour, and animals' olfactory acuity is used for detecting people, weapons, bombs, narcotics and food. Objectives: We briefly summarized current knowledge regarding the use of sniffing animals to diagnose some infectious diseases and the potential use of scent-based diagnostic instruments in microbiology. Sources: Information was sought through PubMed and extracted from peer-reviewed literature published between January 2000 and September 2019 and from reliable online news. The search terms 'odour', 'scent', 'bacteria', 'diagnostics', 'tuberculosis', 'malaria' and 'volatile compounds' were used. Content: Four major areas of using sniffing animals are summarized. Dogs have been used to reliably detect stool associated with toxigenic Clostridioides difficile and for surveillance. Dogs showed high sensitivity and moderate specificity for detecting urinary tract infections in comparison to culture, especially for Escherichia coli. African giant pouched rats showed superiority for diagnosing tuberculosis over microscopy, but inferiority to culture/molecular methods. Several approaches for detecting malaria by analysing host skin odour or exhaled breath have been explored successfully. Some microbial infections produce specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can be analysed by spectrometry, metabolomics or other analytical approaches to replace animal sniffing. Implications: The results of sniffing animal studies are fascinating, and animal sniffing can provide intermediate diagnostic solutions for some infectious diseases. Lack of reproducibility, and cost of animal training and housing are major drawbacks for wider implementation of sniffing animals. The ultimate goal is to understand the biological background of this animal ability and to characterize the specific VOCs that animals are recognizing. VOC identification, improvement of odour sampling methods and development of point-of-care instruments could allow implementation of scent-based tests for major human pathogens.

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Using Dog Scent Detection as a Point-of-Care Tool to Identify Toxigenic Clostridium difficile in Stool

Cited by 29 publications

References 17 publications

The State of Animal-Assisted Interventions: Addressing the Contemporary Issues That Will Shape the Future

The State of Animal-Assisted Interventions: Addressing the Contemporary Issues That Will Shape the Future

Scent dog identification of samples from COVID-19 patients – a pilot study

Sniffing animals as a diagnostic tool in infectious diseases

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