Canine Olfactory Detection of Human Urological Cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Canine olfactory detection of human urological cancer from the odour of human urine samples
IRAS ID
156380
Contact name
Thomas Leslie
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The main aim of this study is to train dogs to recognise urological cancer (prostate, bladder and kidney) in human urine samples.
Dogs are renowned for their sense of smell. For centuries doctors have known diseases have characteristic odours, which dogs may be able to detect. Cancer cells release small amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Cancer detection dogs at the Medical Detection Dogs charity are being trained to detect these volatiles in human samples. We hope that this work will help scientists to develop early cancer screening systems e.g. electronic-nose.
This collaborative study will recruit at least 3,000 participants over 2 years. Urine samples will be collected from two groups of participants:
1. Patients aged 18 and over undergoing diagnostic testing following referral to an NHS urological clinic.
2. Healthy volunteers aged 18-40 years.Patients will be recruited from urological clinics in Milton Keynes Hospital, and healthy volunteers will be recruited from the general public and hospital staff.
Stage 1. Dog Training.
First the dogs will be trained to detect urological cancer by using urine samples from both patients and healthy volunteers. Once the training phase is complete we will move onto the testing phase.Stage 2. Testing Phase.
Urine samples from participants not previously exposed to the dogs, who are diagnosed with a urological cancer, diagnosed with non-malignant disease, or who are free from urological disease, will be used to measure the dog’s ability to detect cancer.In addition we will attempt the chemical identification and isolation of the VOCs the dogs are detecting.
At no point will any individual results be fed back to the participants.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0527
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion