Overview

• In a double-blind trial published July 17 in The Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, two dogs—Bumper and Peanut—detected Parkinson’s scent in skin sebum swabs with sensitivities of up to 80% and specificities as high as 98.3%.
• The dogs underwent 38 weeks of training by Medical Detection Dogs using 205 odor samples drawn from people with and without Parkinson’s disease.
• Lead author Nicola Rooney says the high accuracy between the dogs’ indications supports the existence of a unique Parkinson’s olfactory signature.
• This non-invasive approach could enable diagnosis years before motor symptoms emerge, addressing the current absence of early testing for Parkinson’s disease.
• Teams at the University of Bristol are now refining swab collection procedures and planning multicenter validation trials to pave the way for clinical implementation.