JAPAN / Science & Health / A MATTER OF HEALTH

Yamagata town to test using dogs to detect cancers

Bee, a female Labrador retriever at St. Sugar Japan, a dog training center in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, is prompted to remember the smell of cancerous cells as part of a training exercise. | TOWN OF KANEYAMA

By Tomoko Otake
Staff Writer

May 10, 2017

Dogs are not only loving companions. They could also be our most reliable weapon against cancer.

In a Japan first, a small, agrarian community in Yamagata Prefecture will start using specially trained dogs this month to screen its residents for cancer.

If the pilot project in the town of Kaneyama, which has a population of 6,000, takes off, it could dramatically change the way cancers are screened in this country.

Yamagata town to test using dogs to detect cancers

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