Pets detect woman's breast cancer

A Taiwan woman claims her three pet dogs warned her of her breast cancer six months before it was diagnosed by hospital tests, a newspaper report said.

The 45-year-od woman said her dogs started poking at her left breast in July, at a spot where she developed a lump six months later, according to the United Daily News.

The women, identified as Yen, had read that some dogs could detect abnormalities such as cancer, but was too embarrassed to go to the doctor without any other symptoms.

She consulted her doctor in January after detecting a lump, and medical staff removed a 1.6-centimetre diameter first-phase tumour from the breast, the paper said. - (Sapa, June 2010)