Question: Can animals get cancer? If so do you treat it?

Paul Booker answered on 6 Mar 2015:

Animals can get cancer, just the same as humans. And you can treat it – this is called veterinary oncology (we don’t treat animals in human hospitals, but veterinary radiotherapy centres do exist). As cancer treatment can be expensive, generally the decision to treat is based on how much people value the animal. For example, racehorses are worth a lot so may be treated, and similarly people’s pet dogs. However if a goldfish got cancer it would be unlikely that it would be treated.

The fact that animals get cancer, although sad, can be useful, as it allows us to test treatments and types of diagnosis before they are used on humans. Some people disagree with testing animals like this, but it is the law in many countries that new procedures have to be tested on animals first, to make sure they are safe.