VMA-NYC CE Webinar: Neuter & Cancer - What does the Data REALLY Say? Liquid Biopsy & Personalized Cancer Medicine - Real or Meh?
Event Details
|
Neuter & Cancer - What does the Data REALLY Say? In the last few years there has been an explosion of publications investigating spay/neuter and possible connections to increased cancers, osteoarthritis and other diseases. These publications have led to very strong opinions by a variety of veterinary stakeholders. We will review in this lecture the publications, the numbers of patients and what the data are really trying to tell us.
Liquid Biopsy & Personalized Cancer Medicine - Real or Meh? Despite significant promise, the use of liquid biopsy and personalized medicine in veterinary oncology remains limited and fragmented. While circulating tumor DNA and other molecular markers offer the potential for earlier detection and improved disease monitoring, their clinical application in animals is still largely investigational due to lack of full validation studies. Cost, lack of standardization, and minimal regulatory oversight further constrain widespread adoption. Personalized medicine, though conceptually appealing, currently faces similar barriers—insufficient genomic databases, inconsistent sample quality, and limited access to targeted therapies. As a result, most veterinary cancer care continues to rely on traditional diagnostics and empiric treatment protocols rather than truly individualized, molecularly guided approaches. |
|
Philip J. Bergman, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology) |
Philip J. Bergman, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Oncology)is the Senior Advisor for the Veterinary and Cancer Immunotherapy Programs at the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and he was the principal veterinary investigator for the fully licensed canine melanoma vaccine (Oncept). Dr. Bergman is an adjunct faculty member of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was most recently the Global Director of Clinical Studies for Mars Veterinary Health and VCA (2024 and 2011-2023, respectively). He served as the Chief Medical Officer for BrightHeart Veterinary Centers from 2007 to 2011; from 1999 – June 2007 he was the head of the Donaldson-Atwood Cancer Center at AMC. After finishing veterinary school from Colorado State in 1990, he was an intern at Kansas State (90-91) and returned to CSU for his medical oncology residency (91-94) and then completed a PhD Fellowship in human cancer biology from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (94-99). He was previously Chair of the ACVIM Board of Regents and President of the Veterinary Cancer Society.