At 17 years of age, Angus Hollington was faced with the sudden need to have his leg amputated after enduring six years of invasive cancer treatment. "It wasn't a massive shock," he said. "I just thought, 'Do whatever — fight the cancer more than anything.'"

The Perth teenager was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma at 11 years of age, and while several years of chemotherapy would see him conquer that battle, he then developed a secondary cancer which required his leg to be amputated.

Now 19, and on track for a career as an automotive mechanic, Mr Hollington has thrown his support behind a groundbreaking study by the Telethon Kids Institute which is giving man's best friend a frontline role in the battle against cancer. 

How pet dogs could unlock new treatment

The study, led by associate professor Joost Lesterhuis, is testing an immunotherapy gel on pet dogs which are having surgery for sarcoma, a bone and tissue cancer, in a bid to reduce reliance on invasive treatments such as chemotherapy.

"Sarcoma is a very common cancer [in dogs], just as it is in kids," Dr Lesterhuis said. "So this was an ideal setting for us to test the gel."

The gel is applied around the surgical wound prior to closing, and acts as a prompt for immune cells to attack any remaining cancer cells.

Three-year-old bull terrier Maggie was one of six dogs to be included in the trial. So far none have seen any recurrence of their cancer.

It is hoped the development of the gel will progress to a clinical trial in children in the next few years, and ultimately reduce the need for more traditional and toxic treatments.  "It means you can hopefully get away with a relatively lower dose," Dr Lesterhuis said.

"This is a cruel disease and the life-long side effects that kids suffer from more traditional treatments include learning difficulties, infertility, speech and vision problems and even secondary cancers where the treatments themselves cause new cancers to develop."

Mr Hollington remembers those side effects well. "My first round of chemo I was extremely sick. I barely moved out of the bed," he said. "I was always positive but I always felt sick or unwell."

Promising early signs 

Dr Lesterhuis said he had been working on the gel concept for several years, and results from early veterinary trials this year had been positive.

"We take a tube of blood about two weeks after the gel is applied," he said. "We can then look at the immune cells in the blood and test whether they are activated. "So we know actually that happened in dogs like Maggie. And we know then the gel has activated the immune cells."

Dr Lesterhuis said with the early indications all positive, the next step would be to widen the canine trials of the gel to further establish its safety and effectiveness. He said he hoped it would only be a few years before human trials were possible.

Mr Hollington said he was optimistic the gel could change the lives of young cancer patients. "Seeing how Maggie is going after the surgery, I have full hope this will work out well in the future," he said.

"I really do hope that in the next few years we find something so much better than what we have now so kids don't have to go through what I went through."