Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup DogSense is preparing for what could become one of India’s most unconventional cancer screening innovations-a breath test that relies on the extraordinary sense of smell of trained dogs, combined with brain-computer interface technology.
Called BreathEasy, the screening platform is being developed as a non-invasive method to identify people who may be at a higher risk of blood cancer before directing them for confirmatory medical tests.
The company is aiming for a commercial launch in India in early 2027, subject to the successful completion of ongoing clinical studies. If validated, BreathEasy could offer a simple alternative to conventional screening methods, requiring people to breathe into a mask for about 10 minutes instead of undergoing a blood draw or imaging scan.
The start-up, which mainly uses beagles, known for one of the best senses of smell but also other dog breeds, hopes the test will eventually become part of routine annual health check-ups rather than something used only after symptoms appear.
The technology is not intended to diagnose cancer.
Instead, it is being positioned as a first-line screening or triage tool that identifies individuals who may require further investigations such as blood-based diagnostics, imaging or biopsies. The idea is to reduce the number of expensive and invasive tests performed on the wider population by narrowing the pool to those at higher risk.
With cancer cases rising steadily in India – nearly 15 lakh new malignancies are detected in the country annually – and healthcare resources often stretched, affordable screening tools are attracting increasing attention.
However, experts say BreathEasy remains at an important validation stage, with questions around real-world performance, logistics and scalability still needing answers before widespread adoption can be considered.
HOW IT WORKS
BreathEasy is built around a biological phenomenon. Cancer cells produce unique patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), tiny molecules released through breath as part of the body’s metabolism. Dogs, whose sense of smell is far more sensitive than humans’, can detect these subtle chemical signatures.
DogSense says it goes beyond simply observing whether a dog signals the presence of disease. Its proprietary brain-computer interface captures and interprets the dog’s neural activity while it analyses breath samples, reducing dependence on behavioural cues alone.
Participants breathe into a mask for around 10 minutes, after which the collected breath sample is analysed through the company’s automated detection platform known as SniffSpace.
The company says SniffSpace can currently process more than 200 samples in a single session without human handling during the testing process. To support commercial operations, DogSense plans to deploy multiple SniffSpace units side by side at a single campus, with a long-term goal of processing around one million samples annually.
Breath samples could be collected at hospitals, diagnostic laboratories or other healthcare facilities before being transported for analysis.
CLINICAL EVIDENCE
DogSense is currently conducting larger clinical studies to establish BreathEasy’s sensitivity, specificity and predictive value before commercial rollout.
In a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), approximately 9 per cent of participants without cancer were incorrectly flagged as positive, while around 9 per cent of cancer cases were missed.
However, the company cautions against directly extrapolating these figures to routine screening because the study intentionally enroled a much higher proportion of cancer patients – roughly one in four participants to evaluate the science under controlled conditions.
In the general population, where cancer prevalence is significantly lower, measures such as predictive value can differ substantially.
The ongoing clinical studies are expected to generate data that better reflect real-world screening conditions and help establish the operating thresholds that would guide future clinical use.
SCREENING, NOT DIAGNOSIS
DogSense emphasises that BreathEasy is not designed to replace established diagnostic tests.
The company describes it as a “risk stratification” or triage layer sitting at the top of the cancer detection pathway. Since cancer prevalence in the general population is relatively low, screening tests that are highly sensitive inevitably generate some false positives.
BreathEasy is intended to identify a smaller group of individuals who are more likely to have cancer. Those individuals would then undergo standard confirmatory investigations such as imaging, biopsies or blood-based diagnostic tests.
According to the company, this cascading approach could make cancer screening more efficient and potentially reduce costs by limiting expensive investigations to people at higher risk.
Compared with blood-based multi-cancer detection tests that analyse circulating DNA or imaging scans that detect structural changes in tissues, BreathEasy focuses on metabolic signals released in breath. DogSense argues that its main advantage lies in simplicity and accessibility rather than replacing existing technologies.
EXPERTS URGE CAUTION
Independent experts describe the concept as promising but stress that more clinical validation is needed before it can be integrated into healthcare systems.
Dr Ravi Mehrotra, cancer researcher and former Director of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (ICMR-NICPR), said the technology appears particularly promising for certain cancers and could serve as a high-volume triage tool rather than replacing pathology laboratories.
He said a possible future application could involve mobile health vans collecting breath samples from rural villages, with the system identifying people at higher risk who could then be referred to regional hospitals for confirmatory tests such as biopsies. According to him, such an approach could help optimise India’s limited healthcare resources if the test proves affordable.
At the same time, Dr Mehrotra cautioned that it is too early to draw conclusions until large-scale field trials, especially in remote settings, are completed. He also pointed to practical challenges such as transporting breath samples at low temperatures and developing logistics that make mass screening feasible.
Dr Kamal Saini, a UK-based medical oncologist and cancer researcher, said dogs’ remarkable ability to detect volatile organic compounds associated with cancer has been demonstrated in experimental settings by several research groups.
However, he noted that the approach has not yet been validated or approved for routine clinical use.
Even if future studies establish its clinical value, questions will remain over whether such a system can be scaled across a country as large and diverse as India. While the underlying science is compelling, he said, implementing it as a nationwide screening programme could prove both complex and expensive.
GLOBAL RACE
DogSense is not alone in exploring canine olfaction for disease detection. Israel-based SpotitEarly is also developing breath-based cancer screening using trained dogs.
The Bengaluru startup, however, says its distinguishing feature is the integration of brain-computer interface technology that records neural responses from dogs during sample analysis instead of relying solely on behavioural signals.
The broader concept of canine disease detection is not entirely new. Dogs were deployed in several countries, including at airports in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), during the COVID-19 pandemic to help identify infected travellers based on scent.
While those deployments demonstrated the potential of canine olfaction in screening, experts note that widespread clinical adoption for cancer detection has yet to occur anywhere in the world.
– Ends
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