November is National Pet Cancer Awareness Month and, for the rest of the month, my blogposts will focus on cancer and cancer treatment in pets. Last week, I provided a cancer care roadmap for pet owners following the diagnosis of cancer in their favorite fur person. Today, I am taking a bit of a different approach to cancer and pets. I am looking at some recent studies of how important pets are to people with cancer. Sniffer Dogs Detect Cancer Early Many of us remember the dogs used to diagnose COVID-19 at the height of the pandemic. Well, health professionals are exploring the ..read more

November is National Pet Cancer Awareness Month and, for the rest of the month, my blogposts will focus on cancer and cancer treatment in pets. Last week, I defined the various categories of chemotherapy drugs veterinary oncologists use to treat dogs and cats with cancer. Today, I provide a roadmap for pet owners following a diagnosis of cancer in their favorite fur person. Does my Pet Need a Veterinary Specialist? If your pet has a benign tumor and your primary care veterinarian can surgically remove the tumor, you may not need a specialist. But even some benign fatty tumors (lipoma ..read more

When I see a new client in the clinic to discuss chemotherapy for their favorite fur-person, the conversation can be long and stressful. We need to cover treatment options, treatment schedule, outcomes, side effects and quality of life. I recently had this conversation with a new client, who stopped me and asked, “What exactly are chemotherapy drugs?” It’s a fair question but not one I’ve had to answer before, surprisingly. Keep reading for my answer. Traditional Chemotherapy Drugs for Veterinary Patients Nitrogen Mustard One of the first chemotherapy drugs to be used on human patients was nit ..read more

The soundtrack of my college years went silent with Jimmy Buffett’s passing over Labor Day weekend. The cause of death was widely reported as a rare form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma. Animals also suffer from this rare form of cancer, so today I’ll discuss Merkel cell tumors in animals, in honor of Jimmy Buffett. Why are they called Merkel cells? Merkel cells are named after a German scientist, Dr. Friedrich Sigmund Merkel, who was a leading pathologist of the late 19th century. He is most famous for describing the microscopic appearance of the skin cells that bear his name toda ..read more

June is Adopt a Shelter Cat Month and we’re highlighting our feline friends throughout the month through a series of feline-focused posts. Last week, I wrote about caring for mature and senior cats. This week, I’ll discuss the most common type of cancer diagnosed and treated in cats: lymphoma. What is Lymphoma? Lymphoma is cancer of the immune system. The immune system is distributed throughout the body to protect against infections. Lymphoma in cats most commonly affects the gastrointestinal tract, although since the immune system is distributed throughout the body, lymphoma can be seen in an ..read more

Last winter, Martina Navratilova announced she had been diagnosed with both breast cancer and throat cancer. Unfortunately, the simultaneous occurrence of two different types of cancers in a person is not a rare occurrence, with 2% to 17% percent of people with cancer developing multiple types. The same situation occurs in both dogs and cats, and I have detailed some specific patients in prior blogposts. In this blogpost, I’ll expand on the occurrence of more than one cancer at a time in veterinary patients. Common Tumors Occur Commonly I remind myself of this phrase daily. It helps me focus o ..read more

November is Pet Cancer Awareness Month. To help raise awareness about veterinary oncology, I am devoting my November blogposts to the topic. Last week, my blogpost highlighted “indolent” lymphomas in veterinary patients, including T-zone lymphoma in dogs and small cell gastrointestinal lymphoma in cats. For my last Pet Cancer Awareness Month blogpost, I am excited to write about the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center’s new radiation therapy machine. AMC has several “big machines,” including our CT scanner and MRI machine, and our newest big machine is the Elekta Infinity HD radiation therapy mac ..read more

November is Pet Cancer Awareness Month. To help raise awareness about veterinary oncology, I am devoting my November blogposts to the topic. Last week, my blogpost highlighted quality of life for pets receiving cancer treatment based on pet owner surveys. Today, I will focus on lymphoma, one of the more common cancers in dogs and cats. Lymphoma is a tumor arising from the cells of the immune system. The immune system is distributed throughout the body and includes the lymph nodes, spleen and tonsils. The widespread nature of the immune system means lymphoma is usually widespread at the time of ..read more

November is Pet Cancer Awareness Month. To help raise awareness about veterinary oncology, I am devoting my November blogposts to the topic. Last week, my blogpost highlighted the incredible progress made in veterinary oncology over the last 40 years. Today, I focus on a major concern for pet families affected by cancer: quality of life during cancer treatment. Most people think of chemotherapy when they think of cancer treatment, but veterinary cancer specialists also use radiation and surgery to treat pets with cancer. Below, I summarize the latest research on quality of life from pet owners ..read more

November is Pet Cancer Awareness Month. To help raise awareness about veterinary oncology, I am devoting all my November blogposts to the topic. Today’s post will take a look at the incredible progress made in veterinary oncology over the last 40 years. The Origins of Veterinary Oncology When I started down the pathway to becoming a veterinary oncologist, specialization in oncology was not even possible. If you wanted to be an animal cancer specialist, you obtained an internal medicine residency and focused on diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients. If you were interested in cancer surgery ..read more