Researchers from the University of Liverpool’s Veterinary Data Science Group and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria have created the world’s largest open-source database of canine and feline tumours, containing more than one million records. This unique resource aims to help transform understanding of factors influencing the risk of pets getting cancer.
The team brings together expertise in veterinary pathology, epidemiology, data science and clinical practice. By working with veterinary diagnostic laboratories and applying advanced methods for extracting and standardising diagnostic data, they have created a unified resource.
The size of the tumour registry makes it possible to study rare cancers and uncommon breeds in meaningful detail for the first time. Researchers worldwide can now access rich and standardised data to explore patterns previously hidden by fragmented reporting.
David Killick, Professor of Veterinary Oncology at the University of Liverpool, said: “It is important to understand risks for cancers – and this applies to pets too. But for dogs and cats, most cancer diagnosis data sit in private veterinary labs, inaccessible for research. Working through SAVSNET , our Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network, we wanted to see whether we could bring together large volumes of these data into one meaningful, research-ready database.
“This tumour registry is a major step towards better understanding cancer risk in pets. In addition to allowing better identification of breed related risk of specific tumour types, early analyses have raised the question of how neutering practices may influence risks of particular cancers. The scale of the data also opens new possibilities for exploring the genetic basis of these cancers.”
Jose Rodríguez Torres, PhD Veterinary Data Scientist at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, added: “Analysing cancer diagnoses is well established in human medicine, but similar work in animals has lagged behind due to fragmented data. This study is a leading step forward. With more than 200 breeds and more than 150 tumour types represented, these data can now be explored by researchers worldwide to better understand cancer risk across many tumour–breed combinations.”
Dr Francesco Cian from BattLab, one of the participating labs, and a co-author on the paper said ” It has been a pleasure to work with University of Liverpool and ULPGC on this project and to see a new use for the data we generate. Typically, our results are used by veterinarians to support owners and their pets. In this research, we were able to collate anonymised results and generate new knowledge about the tumour risk faced by individual pets across a wide range of cancers”.
The team plans to expand the registry by collaborating with additional laboratories and continues to collect data in real-time. As the Registry grows, analysis can be further refined – for example, by better understanding how dogs with tumours compare to the wider UK canine population.
The team have created a publicly accessible summary of the data to allow vets, owners and researchers to better understand tumour risk here.
An element of the team’s work, that focusses on dog tumours, is explored in a newly published paper in Veterinary and Comparative Oncology, ‘Epidemiology of Four Major Canine Tumours in the UK: Insights From a National Pathology Registry With Comparative Oncology Perspectives’ (DOI:10.1111/vco.70056).
The work is funded by Petplan Charitable Trust.