[anisppp]

Wow so 2 whole things are able to be identified by volatile chemicals and this leads to all?!

And I wonder how people like Holmes are able to survive for >10 years. We can deliver nicotine via patch, so obviously all drugs should be delivered that way. We can measure glucose from a drop of blood so obviously it follows that all blood tests run that way.

Where is the evidence that even a small fraction of the most common diseases have such a characteristic?

[dang]

Curiosity is the entire point of this site. Cross-examining someone on fraud charges is way over the top! Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN? These include:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

[izuchukwu]

This is needlessly antagonistic. Though all pathology may be a stretch, the evidence for these two was only recently convered and all new fields start somewhere. Indeed, this line of thought brought us Theranos, but also brought us so much else.

[bitexploder]

He was just speculating. Also, dogs can smell cancer in humans.

[tzs]

> Also, dogs can smell cancer in humans

...and the impending onset of dangerously low blood sugar, well before the person realizes that something is wrong. There are diabetes assist dogs available for this [1].

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expe...

[anisppp]

Dogs have been shown to detect certain cancers at later stages (which greatly limits use as a screener.. not to mention how does the sensitivity/specificity compare to state of the art). This is not surprising since as cancers advance they cause gross biochemical changes.

The further issue diagnosing cancer/no cancer or epilepsy/no is an easy problem. But train a dog/machine on 1000 or more rare diseases. Now selectivity is an actual issue. And unless you manage to overcome that, how is all this scent stuff clinically useful?

[hobs]

So the original "sniffer dog" study (The Lancet 8640)[0] pretty much covers a dog sniffing out a melanoma BEFORE it got to a later stage, and saved a woman's life.

I also dont understand how training a machine would have selectivity issues. Machines dont "get trained" on one thing.

0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067368...

[tepper09]

That is not a study. That is a case report written as a letter to the editor. That meets no scientific rigor at all and no generalizable conclusions can be drawn from it, it provides an anecdote for further research. It also doesn’t suggest that sniff tests would fare better compared to any other screening system for melanoma.

[baxtr]

"We know Earth revolves around the Sun, so obviously all planets revolve around the sun? Ridiculous!"

[monocasa]

Last count I saw was that we know of 4016 planets, and only 8 revolve around the sun, so...