A Daily Express report says Medical Detection Dogs has been given the green to begin the first colorectal cancer trial in the UK using dogs’ ability to smell. The charity is working in partnership with Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust to collect and test 2,000 urine and stool samples from both healthy volunteers and those diagnosed with cancer.
“We are delighted this colorectal cancer trial can now get underway,” said Dr Claire Guest, co-founder and CEO of Medical Detection Dogs. “A key challenge is catching patients early – uptake of screening is not high, and it’s an area that many patients are reluctant to seek help for, or to volunteer for screening programmes. If our trial shows dogs can detect colorectal cancer in urine samples, the potential is there for a quick, non-invasive test, which could encourage far higher rates of testing and therefore early diagnosis.”
The report says bowel cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer in the UK with around 42,000 cases diagnosed each year. Like all cancers, it is best treated when diagnosed early. Caught at stage one, 95% of men and 100% of women will survive for five years or more. If the cancer is only picked up at stage four however, the chance of survival drops to 5% for men and 10% for women.
The report says the existing screening for colorectal cancer consists of a first stage stool test, which measures only traces of blood in an individual’s faeces rather than detecting the cancer itself. The second stage involves the insertion of a camera into the rectum to look for evidence of cysts forming. Uptake of colorectal screening is low, but it is hoped a quick, easy and non-invasive test by the dogs using urine would encourage more people to get tested.
In training trials, the dogs had a 93% reliability rate at detecting prostate cancer in urine samples, which is considerably higher than most comparable tests. Guest said: “Our dogs are highly effective bio detectors that have been in development for thousands of years. Their ability to detect disease should not be brushed aside in the hope that one day man might create a machine that’s half as good as the dogs already are.”
Medical Detection Dogs has established a reputation since its foundation in 2008 for training dogs to detect cancer, the report says.
[link url="http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/778609/bowel-cancer-symptoms-dog-smell-urine-stool-samples-trial"]Daily Express report[/link]