The importance of early cancer detection in dogs: Changing the “Friday afternoon” emergency is a free veterinary CE offering made possible through the generous educational support of PetDx®.
This course utilizes the archive of a live presentation.
As you are about to head home for the weekend a dog is rushed in with a hemoabdomen. The owner says, “he was fine this morning.” The family makes a quick and difficult decision to head to surgery. Histopathology confirms hemangiosarcoma.
Today, most cancers are detected after a dog develops clinical signs, sometimes subtle and sometimes life-threatening, after the disease is advanced. But what if there was a way to detect cancer earlier, before that dog becomes sick at a time when the family has more options for treatment?
That is the goal of blood-based liquid biopsy testing. This course provides an overview of how “the blood test for cancer” works, how this technology is being used in clinical practices around the country, and how a simple blood draw has an opportunity to change those heartbreaking “Friday afternoon” emergencies.
After completion of this course, the student should be able to:
- examine how canine cancer currently comes to clinical attention
- explore potential benefits of early stage and preclinical cancer detection in dogs
- explain how next-generation sequencing technology can be leveraged to help identify cancer in dogs using a simple blood draw
- determine the most appropriate age to initiate cancer screening in an individual dog based on their breed or weight
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