Events

Cancer in dogs: How and when is it detected and is there room for improvement?Major veterinary medical organizations recognize the importance of early cancer detection in dogs. However, guidelines-driven screening protocols for early cancer detection are lacking and cancer is often detected at advanced stages. This webinar will examine data from over 350 cancer-diagnosed dogs to establish how the presenting complaint came to attention and led to a definitive diagnosis of cancer in these patients.Additionally, the presentation will review the typical age at which cancer is diagnosed in dogs from a cohort of over 3,000 cancer-diagnosed patients. Using this data, an “age to start cancer screening” can be recommended, based on an individual dog’s breed or weight. The webinar will conclude with a discussion of how blood-based liquid biopsy testing may offer a convenient, non-invasive, screening tool to aid in the earlier identification of cancer in dogs. The presenter is Angela McCleary-Wheeler, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology).

Title: Recent Advances in Veterinary Oncology: Updates Every General Practitioner Should Know. Description: During this webinar, Rachel Venable, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology) will provide an overview of recent advances in oncology. The presentation discusses novel treatments and a new early cancer detection test. A review of the mechanism of action, study results, and uses of an oral treatment for canine lymphoma (Laverdia) along with an injectable treatment for canine mast cell tumor (Stelfonta) will be discussed. The presentation also provides a basic overview of cancer biology and introduces the fundamentals of blood-based “liquid biopsy” testing for canine cancer detection using next-generation sequencing of cell-free DNA (OncoK9). A review of the peer-reviewed clinical validation study of this testing in over 1,000 dogs is included.

Title: Liquid biopsy as an aid-in-diagnosis tool for cancer detection in dogs. Description: When a dog is suspected of having cancer, the workup can take many forms and a variety of testing modalities may be needed to arrive at a definitive or presumptive diagnosis. One novel tool in the clinician’s toolbox is liquid biopsy, a test that evaluates a blood sample for the presence of circulating tumor DNA which indicates the current presence of cancer in the body. This session will review the basic principles of liquid biopsy testing and how this technology may be useful as an aid-in-diagnosis. A series of illustrative case samples will be presented, demonstrating how liquid biopsy has been used in the evaluation of dogs with suspected cancer.

How the "Blood Test for Cancer" Performs in the Real World: An Analysis of 1,500 Liquid Biopsy Cases

Title: Ain't Doin' Right: Use of Liquid Biopsy in the Workup of Suspected Cancer in the ADR Dog