Oral tumors are common cancers in dogs, and one of the most important questions at diagnosis is whether the disease has started to spread.
When cancer spreads beyond its original location, it impacts treatment choices and outcomes. Veterinarians depend on this information to customize care. Families need to understand this to prepare for what lies ahead.
Finding those answers isn’t always easy. Cancer often spreads locally first, and when it occurs in the mouth, it can invade deeper structures in the head where detection is much harder, creating uncertainty at a time when clarity is most important.
“Oral tumors are common in dogs. What we have a hard time doing is ensuring that we can effectively make sure that there’s no evidence of metastasis,” said Christopher Pinard, founder of the Toronto Animal Cancer Centre and former professor at the Ontario Veterinary College.
A Challenge in Diagnosing Spread
In human medicine, physicians often inject a small amount of dye or tracer around a tumor and track its movement through the lymphatic system. This technique helps identify which lymph nodes are most likely to contain metastatic cancer cells.
Veterinarians use a couple of methods to determine whether cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, each with its own tradeoffs.
One option is to use a fine needle to collect a small cell sample from the lymph node. This method is quick and minimally invasive, but because it only samples a small part of the node, it can sometimes miss cancer cells.
The other option is to surgically remove lymph nodes near the tumor site for examination in their entirety. This provides the most definitive answers, but it is a more invasive procedure, comes with higher costs, and isn’t suitable for every dog.
“And then the lymph node might come back from testing as normal,” Dr. Pinard explained. “So we’ve asked, is that appropriate?”
Looking at Cancer Through a New Lens
Dr. Pinard and his team at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College explored a new possibility.
What if a scan could determine whether cancer has already spread to the lymph nodes without needing additional procedures?
Dr. Pinard and his team are exploring this possibility using radiomics, an approach that combines advanced imaging with artificial intelligence to identify patterns invisible to the naked eye.
A radiologist first locates the lymph nodes on a CT scan, then a machine learning model assesses subtle features within those images, learning to distinguish between nodes that contain cancer and those that do not.
While similar techniques have shown promise in human medicine, applying this technology to canine oral tumors is a completely new frontier.
“This work had never been done for this specific purpose before,” Dr. Pinard said.
Encouraging Early Results
To explore this approach, the team studied 50 dogs and closely evaluated 200 lymph nodes, including those known to contain metastatic cancer.
By combining CT imaging with radiomic analysis, they were able to identify patterns that signal whether cancer has spread, demonstrating that this technology can meaningfully distinguish between affected and unaffected lymph nodes.
“These were small numbers, but we were able to correlate CT features in metastatic versus non metastatic lymph nodes,” Dr. Pinard said.
These early findings suggest a promising path toward more precise, less invasive ways to assess metastatic disease for dogs with oral tumors.
The Future of AI in Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Pinard sees this work as just the beginning.
By unlocking rich data from routine medical tests, this approach could extend well beyond identifying metastatic lymph nodes.
Future research may uncover patterns that help predict how a dog will respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, or provide earlier insights into overall prognosis.
Simultaneously, his team is working with a diagnostics company to investigate how imaging data can be combined with blood or urine tests to improve cancer detection and guide treatment choices.
For Dr. Pinard, the potential of artificial intelligence lies in its ability to bring greater clarity, accuracy, and confidence to veterinary care.
“It’s about doing a better job for patients,” he said.
The AKC Canine Health Foundation supports innovative research like this to advance new diagnostic tools, expand treatment possibilities, and create a healthier future for dogs everywhere.
Every discovery brings us one step closer to a world filled with more good days.
To learn how you can support canine cancer research, visit akcchf.org/moregooddays.
