Nationwide Pet Insurance has released several white papers looking at trends in dog cancer diagnoses. In this episode, Dr. Jules Benson explains their paper “About the Size of It: Scaling Canine Cancer Risk.”

First they looked at the likelihood of developing cancer based on the size of the dog, and found that it appears larger dogs are at higher risk. They then looked at some of the most common cancer types in dogs, and the trend remained consistent with one exception, mammary cancer. They also looked at how size affected how old dogs were when they were diagnosed.

Dr. Benson explains that this data does not mean that large dogs will get cancer and small dogs won’t. Instead, this data helps us to know which dogs are at the most risk of different cancers, as well as when we should start being concerned about signs that appear. This work can help veterinarians and owners to catch cancer earlier, increasing the chance of successful treatment.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Show:

About the Size of It white paper: https://www.petinsurance.com/veterinarians/research/ click Canine Cancer and scroll down for full paper

2019 AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines https://www.aaha.org/aaha-guidelines/life-stage-canine-2019/life-stage-canine-2019/

Nationwide Dog Cancer Study and Breeds at Risk podcast episode https://www.dogcancer.com/podcast/types-of-dog-cancer/nationwide-dog-cancer-study-and-breeds-at-risk-dr-jules-benson/

Chapters:

0:00 Start

3:51 Defining Size Categories

8:02 Focusing on Mixes

13:01 Peto’s Paradox

18:05 Relative Risk

23:08 The Magic of Jack Russell Terriers

24:47 Specific Cancers and Body Size

27:41 Size and Age of Onset

31:21 Personalizing Data

32:08 Obesity

33:57 Size and Age of Onset Part 2

39:01 Scientific Process

41:02 Lymphatic Cancer

43:09 Mammary Cancer

45:30 The Takeaways

48:13 ADR

About Today’s Guest, Dr. Jules Benson:

Dr. Jules Benson is an experienced executive in the animal health field. Before coming to Nationwide’s pet health insurance unit, he was on the start-up team of a pet health company, and then assisted other veterinary and medical companies as an executive specializing in healthcare marketing and strategy.

A licensed veterinarian, Dr. Benson is a graduate of the University of Liverpool’s school of veterinary medicine. He has been active in conservation efforts in Africa, and he worked in clinical practice before moving into the pet health industry as a leader.

He can speak with insight and experience on animal health industry trends, start-ups, innovation and strategic planning and, of course, on veterinary medicine.

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