23 Sept 2026
Dana Connell said integrating cancer screening into routine consultations can facilitate earlier detection and make conversations with clients easier.
Vets should incorporate cancer screening into routine health checkups, a leading veterinary oncologist has urged.
Speaking on the Vet Times Podcast, IDEXX global medical affairs specialist Dana Connell said she hopes to see earlier detection through cancer screening such as liquid biopsies.
She noted that lymphoma patients’ disease is often detected once it’s at a more advanced stage, adding: “By giving us an opportunity within our wellness protocols to integrate a cancer screening, that’s giving us an opportunity to detect those patients early.
“It’s not a definitive diagnosis to get a positive on a cancer screening via [a] blood-based approach, but it does alert the veterinarian that there’s something to investigate there.
“That’s important because then we can go onto investigate a little bit earlier, confirm that disease a little bit earlier, and hopefully have early-stage intervention, which will lead to better outcomes in our patients.”
Dr Connell continued: “One of the biggest challenges [with early detection] is that we quite honestly didn’t have the ability to do this until very recently… it’s really exciting.”
Earlier this year, IDEXX announced it was expanding its Cancer Dx Panel to include canine mast cell tumour detection as well as lymphoma detection, and the rollout of FNA cytology on the IDEXX inVue Dx Cellular Analyzer.
Dr Connell said the Dx Panel is “something that’s integrated very easily, because it’s something that fits into the workflow of the normal wellness appointment”, is considered minimally invasive and can also be used to monitor patients undergoing chemotherapy.
She suggested the tool can help facilitate easier conversations for clinicians around cancer.
She said: “Bringing up cancer can be a very difficult conversation and so bringing it up in a context where a patient looks completely healthy and asymptomatic can be something that a lot of veterinarians have a pause around.
“Giving our veterinarians the appropriate tools in communication, and also being very upfront and transparent about what this test does and does not do, is very important to us.”
When discussing the screening test with clients, Dr Connell said it’s “really important to have that initial conversation around what the goals of that testing [and the client] are” and “setting up the expectations beforehand on what to do next, I think that helps to assure our clients through the process and feel more comfortable.”
She continued: “I find if we set it up like that and we have the outlook of, ‘we’re doing this test, it’s solving this problem for us in practice, what would you individually do based on the results’, then that conversation when you get the results is a lot more streamlined.”
Dr Connell recommended starting screening conversations in most canine patients around the age of seven, while for more at-risk breeds such as Labrador retrievers, boxers and beagles she suggested from the age of four.
She said she hopes the Cancer Dx Panel can help give clinicians in “oncologic deserts” broader access to screening and diagnostics.
She added: “The UK is really, really important as a region to IDEXX, and it’s something that we are committed to bringing to the UK.”
For the podcast, see below or visit more audio content here.