Cancer And Your Pets: How To Protect Them , Catch It Early If It Occurs And Making Sense Of Often Sensational News About Cancer

These are the recommendations we were given for preventing cancer in pets:

• Maintain ideal body weight and an exercise program (just like for humans!)
• Good dental hygiene-- it is possible to brush cats' or dogs' teeth (dental inflammation-- as well as FIV infection-- is a risk factor under investigation for oral tumors in cats)
  
• The single biggest way to prevent breast cancer in dogs is spaying before the first heat
• Keep pets with white fur out of the sun
• Eliminate exposure to second hand smoke
• Eliminate exposure to old-fashioned flea dips and herbicides
• Don't over-vaccinate cats for FeLV or rabies, follow current guidelines and use vaccines without adjuvants if possible

Guidelines we received for helping owners catch cancer early:

• Owner education and involvement: teach owners cancer warning signs (lumps/bumps, blood in urine, wounds that don't heal, persistent cough); teach owners how to do dermal mass mapping and have them map masses on their pets onto anatomical diagrams every month or on some kind of periodic schedule; show owners how to examine areas in their pet where cancer is prone to develop or might manifest itself early on and then have them do these exams frequently: mammary glands, oral cavity, interdigital spaces, lymph nodes, ear canal, anus and prepuce/vulva; lastly have owners closely observe bowel and urinary habits for any changes
• Screen geriatric dogs and cats (>8 years by most standards) by doing blood work and urinalysis as part of the office visit; also more frequent office visits for geriatric animals (twice a year instead of once a year)
• Frequent oral exams and dental cleaning (as mentioned above, oral tumors are relatively common in cats)
• Screening for cancer specific genetic abnormalities such as hyperparathyroidism in Keeshonds-- these kinds of tests will become more available soon

Although not widely practiced we also got the following screening guidelines:

• Small, older, female dogs: increased risk of getting bladder cancer. Abdominal ultrasound every 3-6 months; possibly feeding cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli since they contain the active ingredient isothiocyanate-- this is still under study.
• German Shepherds and Golden Retrievers: increased risk of hemangiosarcoma. Abdominal ultrasound every 3-6 months. Possible splenectomy (? more research needed)

And here's some things to keep in mind when reading about studies on cancer in the news and trying to assess risk factors:

• In most cases, risk factors do not cause the disease directly.
• Risk factors are best used to place individuals in high risk groups for monitoring.
• Recommendations for reduction of exposure to known risk factors can reduce the average cancer risk in populations of animals and is useful from a population health perspective.
• Risk factors do not predict an individual animal's level of risk (or person for that matter). Nor is decreasing risk factors highly protective for a single individual. Risk factors are really a tool for determining cause of disease, increasing whole population/herd health and screening high risk individuals to try to achieve early intervention.
  

Evaluating risk factors:

• Look for multiple, independent studies with the same result (don't jump to conclusions based on one study reported in the media!)
• There is a plausible biological explanation for how the risk factors affect disease (lately there have been a lot of studies on humans reporting that drinking coffee reduces prostate and other types of cancer but I have yet to hear a good biological explanation for this so it could be no one knows the mechanism or it could be a coincidental correlation that is meaningless)
  

Thanks Dr. Rod Page and Dr. Barbour Warren for your lecture on cancer risk factors!