Abstract
Cancer is a major reason for veterinary consultation, especially in companion animals. Cancer surveillance plays a key role in prevention but opportunities for such surveillance in companion animals are limited by the lack of suitable veterinary population health infrastructures. In this paper we describe a pathology-based animal tumour registry (PTR) developed within the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) built from electronic pathology records (EPR) submitted to this network. From an original collection of 180232 free text (non-structured) EPRs reported between April 2018 and June 2019, we used specific text-mining methodologies to identify 109895 neoplasias. These data were normalized to describe both the tumour (type and location) and the animal (breed, neutering status and veterinary practice postcode). The resulting PTR, the largest of its kind for companion animals to date, is an important research resource being able to facilitate a wide array of research in areas including surveillance, clinical decision making and comparative cancer biology.
Highlights
Background & SummaryA tumour registry (TR) systematically collects and stores data allowing analysis and interpretation of these data from subjects with cancer providing useful information that may be used in different areas such as epidemiology, health care planning and monitoring[1]
One approach adopted in tumour registry (TR) in the US, involved researchers asking all veterinarians in their respective areas to submit reports for all confirmed tumours
This project used anonymized diagnostic test results submitted to the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) at University of Liverpool between April 2018 and June 2019 by three UK diagnostic laboratories (IDEXX Laboratories, the Veterinary Pathology Group (VPG) and Batt Laboratories Ltd)
Summary
A tumour registry (TR) systematically collects and stores data allowing analysis and interpretation of these data from subjects with cancer providing useful information that may be used in different areas such as epidemiology, health care planning and monitoring[1]. We describe our approach to meet these targets, of a sustainable PTR covering a large population with national coverage and open access, using a health informatic approach to efficiently extract anonymised tumour data from large volumes of routinely collected companion animal EPRs. Figure 1 shows our new approach that capitalises on existing data flows to an established national surveillance network (SAVSNET) which collects approximately 10000 diagnostic test results daily[16] from participating laboratories, including haematology, pathology, biochemistry and infectious disease assays and uses them to support national surveillance and research[17,18]. The most common tumours in dogs were lipomas (21.7%), mast cell tumours (13.1%), and histiocytomas (7.7%) and in cats, lymphomas (14%) and squamous cell carcinomas (11.1%) To our knowledge, this is the largest and most comprehensive animal PTR at a national level providing a reliable tool for veterinary practitioners and researchers as well as a baseline from which further studies can be developed being always aware of the aforementioned limitations of PRTs to perform surveillance strategies. Given the importance of companion animals as sentinels and models of human health, this registry and its future developments could play a significant role in comparative studies with human cancer registries under a ‘One Health’ approach
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