Don't let cancer hide in plain sight: Rethinking how we approach canine lumps and bumps

Dermal and subcutaneous tumours account for nearly a third of canine cases seen in general practice, yet industry data shows that fewer than 40% of these masses are ever sampled, and only one in five of those samples reaches a pathologist. With roughly 15% of canine cutaneous and subcutaneous masses being malignant, this is not a minor gap. It is a structural blind spot in everyday clinical care, and one that the profession has accepted because, until now, there has been no practical alternative. This lecture is not about needles, workflows or revenue. It is about mindset. We will sit with one uncomfortable question: in human medicine we screen apparently healthy women for breast cancer with mammography long before symptoms appear, so why, in veterinary medicine, do we still rely on palpation and a wait-and-see default to make decisions about masses we can already see and touch? Through clinical cases, peer-reviewed evidence and a frank look at the myths that keep us in wait-and-see, we will reframe lump assessment as a screening problem, not a diagnostic one. VISTA iQ enters the conversation as the new first step, not a replacement for cytology or histopathology, but the missing screen that sits before them. Powered by Heat Diffusion Imaging and AI, validated on 892 dogs (Tumor Specific Classification of Canine Cutaneous and Subcutaneous Tumours Using Heat Diffusion Imaging and Artificial Intelligence, in review), the scan is 40 seconds, non-invasive and delivers a clear, actionable cancer-risk category at the point of consult. Real cases, including masses that palpated, looked and behaved like lipomas but turned out to be malignant, will show what changes for the patient, the owner and the clinician when screening becomes the default. You will leave with a different way of seeing the lump on the table tomorrow morning.

• Recognise the scale and clinical consequences of the diagnostic gap in canine dermal and subcutaneous mass assessment, and the inherent limits of palpation-based decision-making.
• Reframe lump and bump care as a screening problem rather than a diagnostic one, drawing on the mammography model in human medicine to challenge the wait-and-see default.
• Identify the most common assumptions and myths that perpetuate under investigation of canine masses in general practice and articulate why each is clinically unsafe.
• Describe, at a high level, how Heat Diffusion Imaging and AI enable non-invasive screening of dermal and subcutaneous masses, and interpret the five VISTA iQ outcome categories in clinical decision-making.
• Apply a screening-first mindset to real clinical scenarios, including masses that palpate as benign, and articulate the patient, client and team benefits of catching cancer earlier.