Contact
New Bolton Center Kennett Square, PA
Emergencies & Appointments:
610-444-5800
Directions
Ryan Hospital Philadelphia, PA
Emergencies:
215-746-8911
Appointments:
215-746-8387
Directions
Penn Vet Cancer Care team and patient Nora

What We Do – About Our Core Services


Here at Penn Vet, we offer an integrated approach to cancer care. And we put your animal at the center of our care approach.

When you come for your initial appointment, you'll meet with a member of our core team so we can get a sense of your pet's history, and previous diagnostics and care, and the specific concerns you have for your visit. We can then determine both a diagnostic and treatment strategy that could involve chemotherapy, immuno-oncology, radiation therapy, surgery, interventional radiology, or a combination of any of these modalities.

Penn Vet Cancer Care

Core Services

  • Medical Oncology
  • Surgical Oncology
    • Penn Vet’s surgical oncologists provide life-saving surgical procedures to remove a wide variety of tumors, including in the limbs and skeleton, internal organs, and oral cavity.
    • Our surgical oncologists have advanced training and knowledge of tumor biology and the role of surgery in the multimodality treatment of cancer. 
    • Learn more about Surgical Oncology at Penn Vet.
  • Immuno-Oncology
    • Over the past decades, physicians and researchers in both human and veterinary medicine have partnered to develop a way for the immune system to recognize and attack cells that previously passed as benign, but that were ultimately destructive.
    • These types of treatment – immunotherapy and immuno-oncology – offer novel and exciting approaches to treating certain types of cancer.
    • Learn more about Immuno-Oncology at Penn Vet.
  • Radiation Oncology
    • Penn Vet’s radiation oncology staff prescribe radiation therapy to shrink or eliminate tumors. Significant technological advances allow for improved targeting of the cancer and sparing of adjacent normal tissues. Penn Vet offers patients the widest range of radiation treatment options using a linear accelerator. Radiation therapy can be used as a sole treatment modality, or in combination with surgery and/or chemotherapy to achieve control of cancer and sometimes even cure it. When this cannot be achieved, radiation can still provide significant alleviation of symptoms and improved quality of life.

      Veterinary patients are anesthetized for each dose of radiation to ensure they remain still during the treatment. The patient’s electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and respiration are monitored using sophisticated equipment. A wide selection of modern anesthesia drugs accommodates each patient’s individual requirements and provides a quick recovery from anesthesia. This allows radiation to be safely administered up to five days a week. 

      Treatment is performed by a team of specialists, including a board-certified radiation oncologist and anesthesiologist, in conjunction with certified veterinary technicians and nurse-anesthetists specifically trained in radiation oncology and anesthesia.
    • Learn more about Radiation Oncology at Penn Vet.
  • Interventional Radiology
    • Penn Vet’s interventional radiology (IR) staff use fluoroscopy, an imaging technique using X-rays to obtain real-time moving images of the internal structures of a patient. Through this technique, they gain access to different tubular structures in the body such as the trachea, ureter, and arteries in order to deliver materials for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Interventional radiology provides viable alternatives for patients in whom conventional therapies are declined, not indicated, or associated with excessive morbidity or mortality. And the procedures — such as tumor embolization (using beads or other substances to block a tumor's blood supply) — are performed with very small incisions. 

      Our interventional radiologists also install subcutaneous vascular access ports (SVAPs) to reduce the time, trauma, and discomfort associated with the placement of multiple short-term catheters. Access to the circulatory system is necessary in order to ensure the patient’s safety during the multiple anesthesias required for animals undergoing radiation therapy. In many animals, there is difficulty maintaining this access throughout a course of therapy with multiple short-term catheters, because blood vessels can become scarred, collapsed, and inflamed when they are repeatedly used. SVAPs not only ensure a simple, non-stressful method to gain vascular access, but they also minimize the need to use multiple veins, thereby preserving these vessels for future use (such as for blood tests, anesthesia, fluid supplementation, or drug therapy).
    • Learn more about Interventional Radiology at Penn Vet.