| 10:30 AM-11:20 AM |
An Internist, a Vet, and a Tech Walk into an Exam Room: Liquid Biopsy in Practice
Just about every vet has been asked at some point: “Isn’t there a blood test for cancer?” Until recently the answer was unfortunately no, but the introduction of next-generation sequencing-based liquid biopsy testing has changed the conversation about cancer detection in dogs. This session will review the fundamentals of blood-based liquid biopsy testing, clinical performance data from real-world use of the test, and how to interpret results in the context of the patient’s clinical presentation. A series of thought-provoking case studies will be presented, along with a discussion of how liquid biopsy can be implemented into a hospital workflow from the perspective of the ordering clinician.
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| 11:30 AM-12:20 PM |
Is It Cancer? Use of a Blood Test to Aid in the Diagnosis of Cancer in Dogs
What do you do when a dog presents with an abdominal mass that you can’t access for FNA or biopsy? How about a case where cytology or histopathology is inconclusive, but you still suspect cancer? What if you recommend biopsy, but the owner objects because they feel it is too invasive? When a dog is suspected of having cancer, the workup can take many forms and a variety of testing modalities may be needed to arrive at a definitive or presumptive diagnosis. This session will review a novel tool in the clinician’s toolbox—liquid biopsy—a test that evaluates a blood sample for the presence of circulating tumor DNA, which indicates the current presence of cancer in the body. This session will review the basic principles of liquid biopsy testing and how this technology may be useful as an aid-in-diagnosis. A series of illustrative case samples will be presented, demonstrating how liquid biopsy has been used in the evaluation of dogs with suspected cancer.
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