Hogan the labrador at work in the lab at K9MD headquarters detecting ovarian cancer.
Video / K9MD
Hogan and Hunter, a Labrador and German shepherd, are skilled in the early detection of ovarian cancer.
Every two days a New Zealand woman dies of the disease, which is difficult to detect.
Early stage trials show Hogan and Hunter’s team has an accuracy detection rate of 96% to 100%.
Every day, the school bus pulls up outside the foster homes of canine pals Hunter and Hogan – but they’re not heading to doggy daycare.
The pair are super sleuths who spend their days training to save lives, using their incredible noses to detect the subtle odours emitted by cancer cells.
The two specially trained canines are preparing to take on deadly ovarian cancer, a disease that kills one New Zealand woman every 48 hours and is tricky to detect until the later stages.
Hunter and Hogan are trained by the charity K9 Medical Detection (K9MD) in Dunedin to detect the subtle chemical changes in the body associated with the early stages of the disease.
At night they go home to their families, but in the morning trainers from K9MD collect the pair, and other highly skilled and hard-working dogs, and put them to their life-saving work.
The dogs at K9MD already have a proven track record of sniffing out prostate and bowel cancers, and more recently have been trained to detect ovarian cancer.
Trainers look for dogs who are high energy, with a high work drive – attributes Hogan and Hunter both have.
Hogan (left) and Hunter are helping fight ovarian cancer with their early detection of cancer in urine samples.
Urine samples collected from women with and without cancer are used to train the dogs and hone their skills.
It’s hoped the early detection by the dogs will find cancer while it’s still treatable and reduce the number of deaths from the disease.
Pauline Blomfield, K9MD’s chief executive and founder, said the organisation is working with medical specialists completing rigorous trials.
“Once completed, research papers will be completed for publication to show the scientific process and results, thereby giving confidence to the medical sector.”
Hunter, a German shepherd from New Zealand’s Heisenberg Kennels, is already successfully detecting ovarian cancer at low concentrations.
Labrador workmate Hogan was gifted to K9MD after Inspector Todd Southall, National Coordinator Police Dogs, visited the charitable trust and was touched by their work.
“It’s not something we normally do but gifting them a dog was the least we could do for their amazing work in cancer research and detection,” Southall said.
Professor Sarah Young, Dean of Science at Auckland University, said the dogs can sniff out cancer cells because the disease leaves behind distinct odours.
“Like many other diseases, cancers leave specific traces, or odour signatures, in a person’s body and bodily secretions. Cancer cells, or healthy cells affected by cancer, produce and release specific odour signatures, which K9MD dogs are trained to pick up on,” Young said.
K9MD’s dog team is able to process around 300 samples a week, with early trials showing an accuracy detection rate of 96% to 100%.
NZ Police recognised Hogan's superior sniffing skills and gifted him to K9MD as a puppy.
Young said the goal was to have K9MD dogs working in labs on the early detection of cancers, in conjunction with further traditional testing.
