Photo credit: Emma Jeffery: “Dog sniffing out cancer.”
A veterinary oncology specialist has embarked on a study to determine if dogs can be trained to detect canine transitional cell carcinoma in the odour of urine.
Following work with detection dogs trained to detect human cancers, vet Isabelle Desmas-Bazelle has begun work to discover if dogs can also be trained to detect cancer in their own kind.
Dr. Desmas-Bazelle, one of three oncology specialists at Hertfordshire-based Davies Veterinary Specialists, [in the United Kingdom] is working on a project to find an affordable, rapid and non-invasive diagnostic test for canine urinary transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) by training dogs to detect this cancer type in the odour of their urine.
‘eNose’
Her work follows studies in human medicine where the use of detection dogs to identify bladder cancer from its odour is already paving the way for the development of an “eNose” as an inexpensive, non-invasive point of care diagnostic instrument.
Urinary TCC is the most common bladder cancer in dogs. Clinical signs are shared with several other urinary tract disorders and diagnosis may be difficult to achieve as taking a urine sample via a needle (cystocentesis) – as it can cause the tumour to spread – is inadvisable.
For a definitive diagnosis, histopathology of a biopsy sample is needed. However, this is invasive and costly, and increases the length of time required to obtain final results, which can delay the start of treatment.
Proof of principle
The study is taking urine samples from:
· healthy dogs without urinary tract abnormalities
· dogs with urinary TCC or non-malignant urinary tract disease
These are being used to train dogs to distinguish those with urinary TCC from diseased and healthy controls. Next, a proof of principle study will be performed on a bigger sample size to achieve calculation of sensitivity and specificity of the test.
Further studies
No experimental animals have been or will be used and the urine collected is from leftovers from clinical patients.
Dr. Desmas-Bazelle said: “We speculate trained dogs can detect tumour related volatile compounds present in the urine and accurately diagnose cancer patients. Further studies could use the same principle on other cancer and tissue types.
“Ultimately, our results could be used for comparative oncology for human cancers.”
