7:00AM GMT 20 Nov 2014
This post is on Healthwise
Five years ago, Dr Claire Guest's labrador Daisy discovered a lump in her owner's breast. Now, Dr Guest has founded Medical Detection Dogs - one of the Telegraph's Christmas charities
| Dr Claire Guest and her labrador Daisy, who saved her life, and this week was awarded a Blue Cross medal for her incredible work (PHOTO: Geoff Pugh) |
At the gatepost of Dr Claire Guest’s bungalow in rural Bedfordshire, a stone bust of a labrador stands guard. At the sound of tyres crunching on gravel, it seems to spring to life: there is a flurry of raucous barks and the sound of a tail thumping on the ground. These barks, however, are coming from inside the house, where the statue’s real-life incarnation – a bundle of rust-red fur and boisterous paws – is defending the front door.
“Down, Daisy!” laughs Claire, squeezing into the hallway. “Who needs a doorbell with this one around?” As she moves through the house, Daisy seems glued to her side, gazing up at her owner with big, loyal eyes. When Claire goes upstairs, the dog perches on the edge of the sofa, tongue lolling, impatient for her return. It’s a scene many dog owners would recognise – but these two are closer than most, because five years ago, Daisy made a discovery that saved Claire’s life.
It was August, 2009 and Claire, a scientist and animal behaviour expert, had been training Daisy to use her sense of smell for medical purposes. Struck by the intelligence of animals, after years of intensive research, she had become convinced that dogs could be used to detect human conditions – from low blood-sugar levels in diabetics to cancerous cells in the otherwise healthy – using nothing but their noses. The part of the brain that controls smell is 40 times more powerful in dogs than humans, meaning they can detect odours at a concentration of one part per trillion.
One afternoon, Claire took a break from work at a nearby hospital to take Daisy and her other two dogs for a walk. “I lifted the back of the car up, and the other two jumped out – but Daisy sat staring at me,” she remembers. “Then she boshed into me a couple of times, prodding my chest with her nose. It was really weird; she’s not an invasive dog. But she pushed into me again. I said, 'Silly girl, go away,’ and she leapt out. We went for a walk, and all the while I was thinking, 'That really hurt.’”
That evening, Claire, now 50, felt the place on her chest where Daisy had pushed her. “I thought there was something there; a lump,” she says. A trip to the doctor confirmed that there was a cyst in her left breast – the exact spot her dog had pinpointed – and she was sent for further investigation. Following a mammogram and a core biopsy, Claire learnt that she had breast cancer.
“The surgeon said I was incredibly lucky for it to be diagnosed so early. It was as deep as a breast cancer can be, so by the time I’d felt anything, it would’ve been too late.” She had a lumpectomy and her lymph nodes removed, followed by five weeks of radiotherapy – and is now cancer-free. She owes her life, she believes, to her dog.
“All I could think was, what a difference Daisy has made,” she says. “I might have had to have aggressive chemotherapy. I might not have survived. That’s what made me decide: right, we’ve got to discover what’s going on.”
As she speaks, her hand is draped around the labrador; Daisy’s paw, in return, rests on Claire’s knee. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by animals, particularly the relationship we have with them,” she explains. “I did psychology at Swansea University and was involved in one of the first studies of the effects of dogs on humans: why, when you stroke a dog, does your blood pressure go down? While studying, I worked as a nurse in a vet’s surgery, where I learnt an awful lot about the bond we have with animals.”
After university, Claire became involved with the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, and, in 2002, joined forces with Dr John Church, a retired orthopaedic surgeon, who had written a letter to The Lancet claiming that dogs could detect bladder cancer from urine.
“We gathered a team from Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, and worked on a study that was published in the British Medical Journal in 2004,” she says. “It was the first publication in the world that showed, without a doubt, that dogs could smell cancer and that cancer had an odour. It was a revelation.”
The researchers were swamped by international interest in their trial – but, back in Britain, they faced scepticism. “People said: 'Well, that’s all very interesting, but how’s it going to help me?’ And they had some mad idea that we wanted to put a dog in every waiting room in the country. That wasn’t the plan at all. I was really deflated by all this negativity. I genuinely believed that dogs were going to save lives.”
| Daisy in action at the Medical Detection Dogs training centre |
But Claire and her team refused to give up. They set up a training centre in Milton Keynes, and supporters donated animals: retired gun dogs, failed guide dogs (“the ones that get distracted by a smell and make their owners walk into a lamppost”), spaniels, labradors and other “inquisitive, happy little dogs”. Claire founded the charity, Medical Detection Dogs (MDD), in 2008 – and began harnessing the connection between dogs and humans for a range of medical purposes: to nudge sufferers of severe Type 1 diabetes that their blood sugar is low; to alert Addison’s patients of the onset of an attack; even to sniff out cancer cells.
The dogs work in a laboratory where tubes containing breath or urine samples are placed on a carousel. They are trained, using a hand-held clicker (to reinforce correct behaviour) to stare intently at a sample they believe contains “abnormal” cells. They are then rewarded with a tennis ball or treat.
Training a medical assistance dog costs around £11,000 (including placing it with the individual) and takes around six weeks; cancer dogs take six months and cost £6,000 to train, with £5,000-a-year maintenance costs. MDD currently has around 55 working dogs, and a waiting list of 100 clients, many of them severely ill and unable to survive without support. “The differences we see are incredible,” says Claire. “Fewer paramedic call-outs; fewer hospital stays; people whose lives are utterly transformed by these animals.”
The charity has launched a groundbreaking breast-cancer trial, involving 1,500 patients at Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, to determine whether dogs can detect mutated cells from breath samples. If successful, Claire hopes the results could improve diagnosis rates, by starting screening earlier and offering regular check ups to those who have already had cancer.
| Medical Detection Dogs in action: diabetic alert dog Molly with owner Steven |
“To start with, I was careful what I said: I didn’t want to alienate people,” says Claire, fondling Daisy’s ears. “But now I say: 'Come on, this information could save lives. We have a duty to try.’” Scepticism about what MDD does has finally turned to fascination – and she hopes the Telegraph’s Christmas Charity Appeal will raise its profile further, bringing in much-needed funds for training and research.
“The future is really exciting. We’re working with manufacturers of 'electronic noses’, who are trying to replicate what the dogs do in technology. The way I see it, our work has only started.”
Her eyes come to rest on Daisy. Now 10, the dog who detected her cancer is due to retire soon. Since diagnosing Claire, she has become the MDD’s foremost sniffer dog, screening 6,500 samples and correctly indicating over 500 cases of cancer. This week, she became the first dog since the rescue mission of the 7/7 bombings to be awarded the Blue Cross medal.
| Dr Guest has written a book about her life, pictured with Daisy's Blue Cross medal |
“I got her when she was eight weeks old,” recalls Claire. “She’s always been like a best friend. She was a little puppy, trotting along beside me, looking up. Just like she is now. She’s a very gentle soul; totally unique. And I am so proud.
“I worry about her grey hairs – that’s the one sadness: whatever you do, a dog is never going to live as long as you. But this one has taught me more than I ever could have imagined.”
How to give:
The Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal 2014 is supporting Medical Detection Dogs, Masanga Mentor Ebola Initiative and The Abbeyfield Society. To find out more about the three charities and make a donation, visit www.telegraph.co.uk/charity
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/telegraphchristmasappeal/11241191/How-my-dog-sniffed-out-breast-cancer-and-saved-my-life.html
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