National Pet Cancer Awareness Month – November 2022

History of National Pet Cancer Awareness Month

Cancer in pets is not a new condition. Bruce Rothschild of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine used a portable X-ray machine and scanned over 10,000 dinosaur vertebrae from more than 700 museum specimens and found evidence of cancer in duck-billed dinosaurs that roamed the earth over seven million years ago. There have even been documents from ancient civilizations which dates back thousands of years about cancer both in people and animals. This includes written recognition of cancer in animals in Egypt in 1600 B.C. The major breakthrough in cancer study came with the development of microscopes in 1590. After this, pathologists were able to describe specific cancers and document their relative frequencies.

The earliest treatment of cancer, which dates back to ancient periods, was surgery. Later it shifted to radiation. Richard Eberlein was the first to use radiation to treat animals and reported his results in 1906. During the Second World War, the U.S. Army discovered that nitrogen mustard was effective in treating cancer of the lymph nodes, and it became a drug used commonly for cancer therapy. Over the last 20 years, immunotherapy has become a major strategy to boost the body’s natural mechanisms to fight cancer.

In 1976, the Veterinary Cancer Society was established, which provided space for like-minded clinicians and scientists to share ideas about the discipline of oncology, And soon, standardizing training was established by the board certifications in medical oncology, radiation oncology, and surgical oncology for better treatment of our pets.