Early bowel cancer detected by dogs in Japan

By James Gallagher

A Labrador retriever has sniffed out bowel cancer in breath and stool samples during a study in Japan.

The research, in the journal Gut, showed the dog was able to identify early stages of the disease.

It has already been suggested that dogs can use their noses to detect skin, bladder, lung, ovarian and breast cancers.

Cancer Research UK said it would be extremely difficult to use dogs for routine cancer testing.

The biology of a tumour is thought to include a distinct smell and a series of studies have used dogs to try to detect it.

Notoriously difficult
The researchers at Kyushu University used Marine, an eight-year-old black Labrador.

She was asked to pick from five samples, one of which was from a cancer patient and four from healthy people.

In the breath tests she picked out the cancer sample 33 out of 36 times.

Even early bowel cancers were detected, which is notoriously difficult.

The NHS screening programme tests for small amounts of blood in faeces, but the researchers believe it picks up only one in 10 early cases.

One in 20 people in the UK develop bowel cancer during their lifetime and more than 16,000 die each year.

Dr Hideto Sonoda, from Kyushu University, said: "It may be difficult to introduce canine scent judgement into clinical practice owing to the expense and time required for the dog trainer and dog education.

"Scent ability and concentration vary between dogs and also within the same dog on different days.

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