Cancer Detecting Dogs At GLEE

The co-founder of Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs, a new UK charity which has shown that dogs can be trained to detect cancer by smell, will be attending GLEE Petindex at the National Exhibition Centre, (NEC) in Birmingham. Claire Guest, will join Dr Roger Mugford at the Company of Animals, (CoA) stand on Sunday afternoon.

Cancer cells are known to produce chemical compounds, which are different from those made by normal health cells, and it is believed that some of these are likely to have distinctive odours.

Claire Guest teamed up with Dr John Church and his team from Amerderm Research Trust at the Amersham Hospital. Together, they conducted a 'proof of principle' experiment to see whether dogs could be trained to detect bladder cancer from the odour of urine.

Guest successfully developed a training programme for a team of six dogs.

Using positive motivational training techniques, the dogs were taught to discriminate between urine from bladder cancer patients and urine from both healthy people and patients with diseases other than cancer. The dogs were taught to signal their choice by lying down next to their chosen sample. Their combined accuracy rate of 56% was highly statistically significant, proving, says the charity, that dogs can detect cancer by using their olfactory capabilities.

Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs intends to continue further studies into recognising other cancers, notably skin cancer and prostate cancer. Focus will be on the identification of the chemical compounds. Work on the detection of diabetes is also underway.

Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs Trustee, Animal Psychologist and founder of The Company of Animals, Dr Roger Mugford, said:

"The fight against cancer is one of the greatest challenges faced by mankind. Today, dogs are widely used by the police and the army to detect drugs and explosives, which highlights how their incredibly strong sense of smell can be turned into making a positive contribution to our human world."