I became interested in methods to detect cancer at its earliest stages and during a conversation with Dr Guest, it became evident that we shared the same vision. With MDD’s support, I swiftly gained the commitment of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to conduct a trial assessing the utility of canine olfactory detection in cancer diagnosis and follow-up.
Ultimately, I hope this work can be translated into clinical settings, particularly in the realm of early rectal cancer treatment and follow-up.

Mr Iain Hunter, Consultant Surgeon, Hull  University Teaching  Hospitals NHS Trust

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer in the UK. The survival rate is around 60%, and many of those not cured present with advanced disease – reflecting how hard it is to diagnose.

Due to the invasive nature of the colonoscopy screening process, only just over half of those offered will take it up.

Following the success of our prostate cancer project, we have been asked to look at how dogs could provide more information about the odour of bowel cancer and 2024 marked the start of our bowel cancer study in partnership with Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Many of those who are not cured present with advanced disease – a reflection of how hard it can be to make a diagnosis.

Due to the invasive nature of the colonoscopy screening process, only just over half of those offered will take it up. The non-invasive faecal screening lacks sensitivity and often still results in the need for a colonoscopy. We are aiming to use urine samples over faecal samples as there is less stigma around supplying these. This would mean any resultant diagnostic test would be more accessible and more people would likely present for screening. It may also be useful in monitoring treatment response and will help scientists identify the tumour specific compounds the dogs are sniffing which can then be targeted in diagnostic laboratory tests.

This project will be the first time we’ve used interactive stands in a project. Developed alongside colleagues at the Open University, they have been designed to collect additional data about how the dogs’ search. This will enable us to learn, in a completely non-biased way, how the dogs interact with the samples, how interesting each one is to them and notice any emotional changes to their response.

Claire Guest, Co-Founder and CEO of Medical Detection Dogs, says: “We believe that information learned from our dogs about the odour of bowel cancer could help deliver an accurate, rapid and non-invasive test for early diagnosis that would be offered to clinicians to use alongside existing diagnostic methods or post treatment monitoring".

Dr Clara Mancini, Professor of Animal-Computer Interaction at The Open University, says: “Medical Detection Dogs do amazing work, leveraging dogs’ extraordinary olfactory intelligence to advance the early detection of life-threatening diseases, such as colorectal cancer. At the Open University’s Animal-Computer Interaction Lab, we are very excited to collaborate with this pioneering Charity. Our first-of-its-kind interactive technology uses sensors to capture the dogs’ spontaneous response to the biological samples they sniff, producing data that can be analysed using machine learning to offer key insights into the dogs’ knowledge about the odours they examine. This will effectively enable the dogs to share with us information that could relate to the stage or aggressiveness of a disease.”

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