Pigeons could be used by doctors to help spot signs of breast cancer

Smart bird: a pigeon being trained to screen images of benign and malignant breast tissue
PA
Rachel Blundy8 November 2018

Pigeons could be used by doctors to help spot the signs of breast cancer, researchers have suggested.

The birds were found to be as effective as humans when employed as cancer-screening pathologists.

A study has found that with the right training, pigeons could identify signs of the disease in biopsy samples and mammogram scans.

Academics at the University of California used eight pigeons in their experiment.

Using food rewards, birds were trained to peck a blue or yellow "report button" depending on whether they were being shown a benign or malignant image.

Lead researcher Professor Richard Levenson, from the University of California at Davis, US, said physicians sometimes struggle to interpret microscopic slides and mammograms even after years of education and training.

He seriously suggested giving pigeons a role in the development of new diagnostic procedures.

He said: "With some training and selective food reinforcement, pigeons do just as well as humans in categorising digitised slides and mammograms of benign and malignant human breast tissue.

"The birds were remarkably adept at discriminating between benign and malignant breast cancer slides at all magnifications, a task that can perplex inexperienced human observers, who typically require considerable training to attain mastery."

They were also as good as human radiologists at detecting microscopic calcification spots on mammograms that can be an early sign of cancer.

Previous research had already shown that the common pigeon, Columba livia, has an extraordinary ability to categorise a wide range of objects and images.

They can distinguish between human faces and expressions, letters of the alphabet, and even paintings by different artists.

But the birds found it much more difficult to classify suspicious masses on the scans - a task described as "very challenging" even for expert humans.

Co-author Professor Edward Wasserman, from the University of Iowa, US, said: "These results go a long way toward establishing a profound link between humans and our animal kin.

"Even distant relatives - like people and pigeons - are adept at perceiving and categorising the complex visual patterns that are presented in pathology and radiology images, surely a task for which nature has not specifically prepared us."

Additional reporting by the Press Association

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