Part 1: Oncology

Cancer is the number 1 reason of death in pets and the most frequent diagnosed disease: often death is due to advanced diseases or aggressive tumours, however sometimes that can be avoided by promptly recognizing cancer signs and offering therapies with effective communication. Therefore, it is mandatory for veterinarians nowadays to have a basic understanding of cancers, their biology and the different types of therapies available in veterinary medicine, including palliative care. It is also important to be able to deal with the emotions of owners of oncological patients in order to give the best possible care.

The present module of Oncology is devised to provide the practitioner with an overview of biology of cancer, the most common signs that leads to the suspicion of it (e.g. paraneoplastic syndrome), the concepts of staging and tips for effectively communicating with overwhelmed owners. Moreover, the course will give a broad overview of the most encounter cancers in private practice. Practical sessions will be interspersed in the lectures to allow participants to apply the theoretical knowledge acquired and discuss with the lecturer.

Part 2: Neurology

Neurological disorders often present with severe clinical signs and need to be rapidly recognized and treated to obtain a positive outcome. Sometimes, the presenting clinical signs may overlap with those of disorders of other organs, and combining the inputs from internists and neurologists can be crucial for the correct approach to these cases. Neurological disorders can be the consequence of metabolic/systemic diseases, be the cause of autonomic signs such as regurgitation, urinary and gastrointestinal dysfunctions or also represent an underlying predisposing factor for diseases such as aspiration pneumonia or urinary tract infection.

With this course you will learn how to recognize the presence of neurological signs in your patients, how to correctly localize them within the nervous system and how to provide a list of differential diagnoses. Furthermore, you will be provided with an overview of pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of the most common diseases in veterinary neurology.

At the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

• Know the main concepts of cancer biology, cancer types and their behaviors;
• Understand the meaning of cancer staging and the TNM and WHO staging systems
• Be able to effectively communicate with the owners of cancer patient, deal with delivering bad news without losing hopes.
• Interpret basic cytology of tumours and understand more advanced techniques in oncology such as flow-cytometry and PARR
• Decide a good palliative care plan for those patients with very advanced diseases or when the owner declined further treatment
• Understand the mechanism of action of chemotherapy and the main chemotherapy classes
• Learn how to calculate a chemotherapy dose and deal with the potential adverse events
• Have a basic knowledge of frequent tumours of companion animals and their therapies: lymphoma, mast cell tumour, hemangiosarcoma, mammary tumours.
• Recognize the presence of neurological signs in a patient;
• Localize the problem within the nervous system;
• Provide an appropriate list of differential diagnoses;
• Improve the clinical approach to the most common neurological diseases based on a better knowledge of their pathophysiology and of the mechanism of action of the most commonly used drugs.

The module will provide basic and more advanced information about oncological and neurological disorders and it is suitable for more and less experienced veterinarians willing to deepen their knowledge in these topics.

All modules will be held in China, in English language with consecutive translation in Chinese.