The story below is a preview from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Virginia Tech’s Animal Cancer Care & Research Center offers innovative treatments that give pets a fighting chance.
Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Co-locating the ACCRC in the same facility as FBRI supports comparative oncology studies that will benefit both pets and people with cancer.
Jordy the dog began developing tumors at age 10, says owner Taylor Reschka. Jordy’s veterinarian called them lipomas — fairly common, soft, non-cancerous lumps. Reschka and his wife Stephanie only needed to be concerned if the lumps became hard or hot to the touch, the veterinarian had said.
“Well, sure enough, one day we were petting him,” Reschka says. “And I was like, that’s a warm spot, and this a hard spot.”
Bad Juju
Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Hank hangs out with his owner, Dr. Natalie McLaughlin, at Big Lick Veterinary Services
People always want to know what to look for when it comes to spotting cancer in their pets, says Dr. Natalie McLaughlin, a veterinarian at Big Lick Veterinary Services who has not treated the animals mentioned in this article.
“In all situations, [it’s] different,” she says. Some of the more common symptoms include: not eating, vomiting, lethargy, generally not feeling well, unexplained weight loss, labored breathing and lameness.
“An owner [might find] a mass on the animal’s belly, like a lump, and they ask, ‘What’s this?’” McLaughlin says. “And, sure enough, it’s bad juju.”
Cancer can appear in most body systems. McLaughlin stresses the importance of regular check-ups with lab work. That gives her a chance to find the problem before the animal is not feeling well.
McLaughlin tries to get to the bottom of problems in-house. Sometimes she can arrive at a diagnosis through lab work alone. Sometimes, she needs to conduct fine needle aspiration, in which she extracts fluid from a mass or a lymph node. Sometimes she takes a biopsy. She also has x-rays and ultrasounds at her disposal.
The Referral
Courtesy of Taylor Reschka
Jordy is still full of spunk, three years after developing a sarcoma in his hip.
Reschka’s veterinarian ran the diagnostics. Jordy’s lump was a cancerous sarcoma. There wasn’t much they were going to be able to do because of the sarcoma’s location on his hip and Jordy’s advancing age. “The surgeon at the vet said that it wasn’t a good spot for surgery,” Reschka remembers.
When a case is complicated, veterinarians make referrals to places like Virginia Tech’s Animal Cancer Care & Research Center.
Reschka was advised to take Jordy to the ACCRC for further diagnostics and a second opinion about the surgery. Their veterinarian reasoned that knowing what degree, or grade, of cancer they were looking at would empower them to make an informed decision about how to proceed. Reschka made the appointment and waited.
A Complex Disease
The ACCRC is located at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion in Roanoke. There, a team of veterinary oncologists offer pet cancer patients integrated comprehensive medical care with a noble goal — to cure cancer.
In practice, this means that a dog or cat — or even one cancer-stricken iguana — can walk through the doors and and receive a combination of surgical, medical or radiation treatments. It’s all completed under one roof, making cancer treatments convenient for pet owners while facilitating collaboration between oncologists.
“That is a unique advantage that we offer to the families who come to see us because cancer is a complex disease,” says Dr. Joanne Tuohy, Tuohy, associate professor of surgical oncology at the ACCRC and at VT’s Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.
In addition to treating cancer patients, the center is a research facility, where owners can choose to enroll their pets in clinical trials. Tuohy leads an interdisciplinary team of researchers who are studying osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer most commonly treated with chemotherapy and amputation. The survival rate after treatment is poor; dogs are expected to live a year, people have a five-year survival rate of 65% to 70%.
Tuohy and her team are innovating a non-invasive treatment method that uses histotripsy, in which ultrasound technology is used to create bubbles to remove tumors. Last spring, VT received a National Cancer Institute grant to further this work, which is expected to result in a more precise, image-driven prototype.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Dr. Joanne Tuohy builds meaningful relationships with patients and owners who visit the Virginia Tech Animal Cancer Care and Research Center, she says, though she hopes there will be a future in which cancer does not exist.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Dr. John Rossmeisl is focused on developing treatments for dogs with brain cancer, including the use of histotripsy. He is the recipient of a 2025 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and Dominion Energy.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Dr. Tuohy and an associate examine a cat in the ACCRC’s pre-surgery suite.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Co-locating the ACCRC in the same facility as FBRI supports comparative oncology studies that will benefit both pets and people with cancer.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
Owners are referred to the ACCRC by veterinarians. They have traveled from as far away as New York and Illinois.
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Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center
A surgery suite at the ACCRC. The facility’s One Health philosophy allows patients like Bean to undergo diagnosis, histotripsy and surgery all in one location.
In recent years, VT has also been awarded grants to identify tumor-disrupting techniques for pancreatic and liver cancer and soft-tissue sarcomas, as well as other cancers.
VT associate professor Eli Vlaisavljevich and Dr. John Rossmeisl, who served as the ACCRC interim director from 2021-2022 and is now a professor and associate department head at the VMCVM, have been focused on alleviating difficult-to-treat brain tumors in companion animals and humans. Their study resulted in the first-ever histotripsy brain tumor ablation performed in a clinical patient. The patient — a dog named Lucy.
As Spirited As Ever
Want to know more about how cutting-edge treatments and research at Virginia Tech’s Animal Cancer Care & Research Center are offering hope to pets like Bean and their owners? Check out the latest issue, now on newsstands, or see it for free in our digital guide linked below!
The story above is a preview from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!