"I'm Not Looking for Cancer"

That's a pretty broad generalization and, it's not always true. Sometimes cancer just jumps right out at you. On palpation, during exam, or on the bloodwork. Xrays and such sometimes reveal cancers.

Any time a pet is sick and the symptoms are even a little ambiguous, cancer jumps onto the list. But, practically-speaking, it's incurable.

Wait, what?

Yeah.... *ALL* cancer is treatable. But that's semantics. For $7,000-$24,000 they can treat your dog's cancer.

(We never said a single thing about 'extending life' or 'curing it'.) You have to listen carefully to the 'small print' in their words.

I am a BIG fan of diagnosing and treating the "treatable" diseases. Disorders you can actually fix. I love that. But once we know that there are no more 'treatables' on the rule out list - - don't you think it's time to stop pouring revenue into the effort? And so I say "I don't spend time or money looking for cancer." Because there's no point, practically-speaking.

But sometimes the BEST way to diagnose cancer costs the LEAST.

Sometimes there's a symptom or disorder and there's only three things it could be:

For example: Infection, Inflammation -or- Cancer.

You can spend $21,000 on the obligatory Neurology Department referral and rest of the sampling, imaging and biopsies needed to track down neoplasia in a pet - OR you could treat the first two problems and if THAT fails, all you have left is cancer*.

Yeah, that depends on being RIGHT about the "only three possibilities" thing.

But, when a dog is hobbling along at 15 to 17 years old and you want to give him a chance to have a treatable disorder, without spending twenty one thousand dollars at a Vet Franchise to rule out cancer -- there's this.

Did you know that cancer is on the rule out list for EVERY SINGLE DISORDER OR SYMPTOM A DOG OR CAT CAN HAVE? Yep, there's a way cancer can cause everything: From itching to coughing to limping to restlessness at night, from diarrhea to frequent urination.

And as a result; some franchises will take that ball and run all the way into the end zone: Ruling out cancer in the lymph nodes and synovial fluid of a dog with an obviously broken toe.

So I don't spend time or money looking specifically for cancer although sometimes I'll spend a buck to biopsy a skin tumor or lymph node to give the owner odds-of-survival.

As an example: I'm looking at a case of anemia in a dog. Not enough red blood cells in there, and it's not losing or destroying [loss or lysis] the cells. So it's either not making the cells due to a treatable condition, or cancerous bone marrow replacement of red-cell-producing cellular precursors.

A bone marrow biopsy is very expensive, time consuming, accomplishes no health benefit to the animal, and is uncomfortable. Plus, results can be ambiguous. Or, you can spend less money on a little bloodwork, and treating the SURVIVABLE possible causes, and if they work, guess what: It wasn't bone-marrow-cancer.

*When all treatments fail: Are you sure it's cancer? Nope. But we gave treatments for all the treatables, so that even if you admit you have not proven cancer you HAVE proven the disease isn't treatable. Haven't you.

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