Cancer, has been one of the major topics I’ve recently been immersing myself in at the Australasian Veterinary Conference. Currently more than One Third of all our pets reaching the age of ten will be killed by cancer.

As our knowledge of Tumours and our techniques of treatment have rapidly progressed, so have vet’s ability to deal with these diseases and in many, many situations, to fully cure our four legged patients.

The best advice I can offer to all pet owners is to regularly examine your own animals for signs of any lumps or swellings. Start them from a young age to assist with tolerance, and thoroughly check them from nose to tail. Open mouths, pull back lips, feel their skin surfaces, part their coats and “play” with their feet.

The earlier you detect a lump the better, if one is found don’t just assume it’s nothing important, and don’t ignore it in misplaced fear that it wouldn’t be treatable. Instead promptly present them to your vet for further investigation. The first (and often only step if the mass is benign) is for us to take a sample, without testing there is no one on this planet that can give a totally accurate diagnosis.

We can usually do this with your pet fully conscious using local anaesthesia and a fine needle aspirate, or a punch or wedge biopsy of the unusual tissue. If the lab reports the cells to be very benign (e.g. a Lipoma) then we can normally all rest easy at that point. Some benign masses are still best removed as they can press against nearby organs and interfere with blood circulation. On occasion we instead see signs of malignancy, with the threat of local tissue invasion and spread to other parts of the body via blood and lymph systems.

Total surgical removal is by far the most effective treatment in the majority of these cases. It is therefore crucial to get onto these early when the mass is smaller and can be removed with less disruption of surrounding organs, and has had less opportunity to spread.

With some tumours we will also use a course of cancer killing drugs (chemotherapy), and radiation therapy is available to us if required. These modalities target the DNA of the cancer cells preventing replication, causing tumour shrinkage (sometimes useful to allow easier removal) and restricting the disease’s ability to spread.

As pet owners we can make choices for our pets which drastically reduce the likelihood of developing cancer in the first place. Spaying bitches in their first year of age reduces the likelihood of mammary tumours by 15 times, and fully neutering a male with a retained testicle prevents otherwise very likely testicular cancer.

Check your pets often, get anything abnormal tested, and lets work together early and comprehensively to totally cure these diseases whenever possible. Kind regards, Dr Alex Melrose.