Biomarkers to improve cancer care
At an international conference in Uppsala Sweden, Uppsala Health Summit 14-15 June 2018, professor Henrik Rönnberg, SLU Uppsala, co-organized a workshop named Towards Useful Cancer Biomarkers to Improve Cancer Care.
Disease prevention and early diagnosis will significantly reduce animal suffering, improve animal welfare and reduce costs for pet owners, says professor Rönnberg. The use of serum thymidine kinase 1 (TK1), as in Alertix assays, is mentioned at the workshop as a promising biomarker for early detection of cancer diseases.
Dogs are also of interest for the study of human cancer development and treatment
- The domestic dog has become increasingly useful as a comparatively spontaneous cancer model to study genetic and environmental risk factors. The many similarities between various cancer types affecting humans and dogs and the spontaneous development of these cancers in dogs living in a shared environment with us suggest a common etiology.
- The shorter lifespan of dogs and the shorter time to relapse after cancer treatment allows data regarding efficacy, short and long-term toxicity and side-effects of novel cancer drugs to be generated in years rather than decades as in human clinical trials, continues professor Rönnberg.
About 200 international participants, researchers as well as policymakers, joined from all over the world at the Uppsala Castle for the two-day conference to improve cancer care.
Read more in the workshop report on pages 28-33