Sniffing Out Cancer With Electronic Noses 22
An anonymous reader writes "We may soon be able to obtain easy and early diagnoses of diseases by smell. This week researchers found one odor-sniffing machine was as good as a mammogram at detecting breast cancer — and many other devices capable of spotting other diseases may be on the way."
Re:As good as mammogram (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue with mammograms is inappropriate mass screening; they're still a useful diagnostic tool, and have a benefit in routine screening in high-risk populations. If this device has the same false positive/negative rate as mammograms but is less intrusive and doesn't involve X-ray, that'd improve the benefits for those groups even futher.
Now, there is a related issue that any more-convenient diagnostic tool runs an even higher risk of being overapplied.