A case study of Zoetis Virtual Laboratory and lymphoma treatment

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Learn about a real-life case of a 10-year-old Basenji with lymphoma who was diagnosed and treated with the help of the Zoetis Virtual Laboratory

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Adam Christman, DVM, MBA

Welcome back, everyone. So, we're gonna delve into a specific case that Dr. Wolfe has. And now that we chatted about the use of our current diagnostics, would you mind sharing us a little bit of a case story?

Shelli Wolfe, DVM, MBA

Sure. So as far as a 10 year old, spayed, female Basenji, she was seen at doctor Clary’s clinic for evaluation of enlarged lymph nodes. And the veterinarian performed a fine needle aspirate, and within a couple of hours was able to receive those results via the Imagyst with a confirmation of lymphoma. And so they went ahead and set up an appointment with me the following week to consider consultation for chemotherapy. So in the week between when she was seen in when she came over, her lymph nodes had even enlarged more significantly. And so, Lisa and I had talked about doing some more extensive testing, but we had decided to go ahead and elect to make a decision based upon the Imagyst diagnosis of lymphoma. And so we talked through different protocols, we elected to do the most aggressive protocol CHOP, and we went ahead and began it that day and our first week of vincristine and our second Cytoxan and our third of vincristine went very smoothly. But our third week after she received doxorubicin, within a few days, she started to have pretty significant abdominal discomfort and drooling and severe diarrhea...so severe that she presented in towards the weekend, hypoglycemic hypoproteinemic decreased temperature very, very ill, and so admitted her for supportive care, but also began two-week process in which he was in the hospital. And we performed daily in house diagnostics on her and at one point we're having to work between if she had unknown liver disease, and maybe if her liver had failed, or if this diarrhea, it's acute diarrhea it was so severe, it was causing a protein losing enteropathy. So that helped provide us in house diagnosis. Diagnostic specifically, the bile acids have access to the liver panel and the bile acids made me feel confident that this was due to her severe GI disease. And so we got her well, but we weren't ready to stop with her. We were really ready to continue on with chemotherapy. And so we then utilize the consultation service, presented them all the exam findings, the Imagyst to what had gone on and via very quick lesson to our email response was able to decide that the best plan for her moving forward would be COP, and they provided me access to different protocols. We talked through those, elected on one, and she currently is on COP and has been on that for four months now. She's been in remission since about April.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA

Wow, that's fantastic. I just think it's wonderful that you're able to utilize the consultation services that were available.

Shelli Wolfe, DVM, MBA

Yeah, it was. it really helped me. Whereas, you know, I could have gone and looked in other resources there and done my own research, but they're also for me. We're a very busy practice. And oftentimes, when I'm doing those things, I'm doing them after hours. And that's interfering with time spent with my family and such. And so I was able to provide to them the consultation via email and receive a response back within a couple of hours, and not have to do that research myself. And they are current. Sometimes when I look in other places for care, I might find data from you know, 99 or 2005, or 2012 or 2020. And this data from them is 2023 data there. So it was I was able to receive it in a couple of hours. And it's probably more extensive than what my research myself could have been.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA

That's fantastic. Well, we're very looking forward to chatting with Zahara's mom Lisa and Zahara is going to be joining us on the next episode. To get a different perspective and a unique one, Dr. Penn, this is a fantastic example of how we can deliver precise results to our clients quickly for the greater good of our patients…consultations, specialist ordering tests, etc. And we can utilize the consultation services at any time?

Cory Penn, DVM

Yeah, anytime. And it's all part of our virtual laboratory to really allow us to as veterinary professionals look deeper into our patients. So, we think about the virtual laboratory as encompassing our point of care diagnostics, including the VetScan Imagyst with the artificial intelligence as well as access to clinical pathologist we think about ZoetisDx, which allows us to trend those results in a value way kind of that trending information for that patient. It also encompasses our reference laboratories, let us reference labs, as well as those complimentary consultations to say, "Hey, I've got this information. Okay, that's one part of the puzzle. Now, I would like to build out an individualized treatment plan and next steps for this particular patient to be able to communicate to that pet owner, so it really is crisp." And I really think of the Zoetis virtual laboratory as that security blanket that allows any practitioner anywhere access to expert level results and specialists to really help drive that care up and provide that the best care that we can for that pet and for that pet owner.

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA

That's fantastic. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

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