Blood Tests and Cancer

[alimel]

Would your vet be able to detect Cancer with a full blood work up for your dog? I was just wondering if certain levels would indicate a potential problem that required further testing.

[RoughCollies]

I'm no expert, but I think certain types can be detected this way. It has to do with white cell counts.

[weezyNollie]

White cell counts would have to do with infection. Dogs don't typically get Leukemia or common human cancers that involve RBC's or WBC's.

A full panel can suggest certain disorders/diseases. Usually very unusually matched blood work would suggest cancer. But, cancer is usually only diagnosed with ultrasound/biopsies/etc.

It's also suggested when symptoms don't point to one thing, and working up for certain disorders don't match up. IE -- we had a cat who was coughing, sneezing, couldn't really breathe, weight loss and anorexia. We took radiographs and the lungs were very congested. We guessed maybe Feline Asthma? Gave the cat a steroid injection and did a recheck a week later. The cat did great for 2-3 days and then back to the same. Rechecked radiographs -- lungs looked the same. Hospitalized the cat and put her on IV antibiotics, steroids, and fluids. No improvement. We euthanized the cat. Later to find a very thick, yellow, fluid in the lungs and when doing a cytology -- abnormal cells that were budding. Meaning high chance of cancer.

[alimel]

Originally Posted by weezyNollie

White cell counts would have to do with infection. Dogs don't typically get Leukemia or common human cancers that involve RBC's or WBC's.

A full panel can suggest certain disorders/diseases. Usually very unusually matched blood work would suggest cancer. But, cancer is usually only diagnosed with ultrasound/biopsies/etc.

It's also suggested when symptoms don't point to one thing, and working up for certain disorders don't match up. IE -- we had a cat who was coughing, sneezing, couldn't really breathe, weight loss and anorexia. We took radiographs and the lungs were very congested. We guessed maybe Feline Asthma? Gave the cat a steroid injection and did a recheck a week later. The cat did great for 2-3 days and then back to the same. Rechecked radiographs -- lungs looked the same. Hospitalized the cat and put her on IV antibiotics, steroids, and fluids. No improvement. We euthanized the cat. Later to find a very thick, yellow, fluid in the lungs and when doing a cytology -- abnormal cells that were budding. Meaning high chance of cancer.

Good to know, I was just curious since Mel's blood work came out fine but he does not want to eat his regular food if there could be something going on that did not show in the blood.

[rubyred]

I am pretty sure that this was a question I asked our vet last year when Snookers and Nelson were having their annual exam and he said that cancer would not show up on the blood panel. Now I am not certain whether that would be true for all cancers or just a specific one.