Letter published: The Global Initiative for Veterinary Cancer Surveillance
Cancer registries are important tools for cancer surveillance identifying those populations most at risk, and changes in risk over time.
Existing veterinary cancer registries are frequently small; lack of standardization also makes comparing data between countries hard.
The Global Initiative for Veterinary Cancer Surveillance (GIVCS) was launched in 2018 to help overcome this.
In the United Kingdom, SAVSNET is leading the way using novel methods based on data from participating laboratories to produce possibly the largest pet animal cancer registry on the planet (>1,000,000 cases).
This can be used to identify risk factors for cancers such as breed, as discussed in our surveillance report.
Scientists devoted to animal cancer registration are invited to join the initiative through the website www.givcs.org
The work on the SAVSNET cancer registry is being carried out by Jose Rodrigues Torres who spent three months working with us as part of his PhD looking tumour epidemiology.
Read the letter here