Cancer care in the primary practice

In a preconference interview with dvm360, Craig A Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology), talked about his lecture “Veterinary Oncology: What Can I Do in the Primary Care Setting?” presented at the Fetch dvm360 conference in Long Beach, California.

In the interview, Clifford outlined what he discussed in his lecture, explaining that primary care veterinarians, not just specialists, can perform certain diagnostics and provide treatment for cancers in animal patients.

Below is a partial transcript. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

Craig A Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology): …the focus of this lecture is that, you know, for many years—too many years, I would say, looking back—you know, I focused a lot of my lectures on…what I can be doing cancer-wise, and why a primary care doctor should be sending me the case and how I can help. And then it really hit me, maybe about 5 years ago that was incredibly self-serving. So I've really modified the way I do my lectures, and I've really rotated everything around to being more ‘what are the things that can be done in the primary care setting?’ and focusing more on what the primary care doctor can be doing for cancer patients, not just where my role is.

We're going to talk about diagnostics that primary care doctors should be doing in their clinic. You know, oftentimes we've gotten to the point we view test as either a primary care test or a specialty test, and that's not really the case. These are veterinary tests. So we're going to talk about the idea of doing immunophenotyping for dogs with lymphoma, large cell lymphoma, and why that's important, and why that should be done in the primary care setting. It doesn't have to be done with the specialists.