MONTREAL, CANADA ― Excellence in veterinary medicine knows no borders. This was the theme of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum and Canadian Veterinary Medical Association Convention on 3-6 June at the Palais des Congres de Montreal. Presenters offered the latest news in veterinary medicine. Here are a few highlights:

Dr. Stephen Withrow, veterinary oncologist and director of the Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University, studies bone cancer, and increasingly he's sharing his knowledge with human pediatric oncologists. That's a good thing since bone cancer ― which is common in larger dogs ― is pretty much the same as bone cancer in children.

Withrow discovered that following a surgical procedure called limb-sparing, dogs who developed infections actually lived longer than those who had no infection following surgery. After alerting colleagues in human medicine, pediatric oncologists studied the issue and reported the same was true for children. Withrow says presumably it's because infections stimulate the immune system to kick in. As a result of this research, children are given an immunostimulator drug following a limb-sparing surgery, and lives are spared.

Withrow says another recent discovery is that dogs with bone cancer commonly have a gene called Ezrin. Unfortunately, dogs with this gene have a poor prognosis.

No surprise, the same poor prognosis associated with the gene was found among children with bone cancer.

Drug therapies can't be tried on people without jumping through many regulatory hoops.

However, clinical trials in dogs don't require as much red tape, and if there's even hope their pet may be saved, many owners will opt for experimental options.

Today, several veterinary schools are learning if a drug may specifically help dogs with this 'bad gene.' If that drug works, as Withrow believes is possible, it's also possible the same drug will soon be extending, even saving, the lives of kids with bone cancer.

Several speakers addressed the increasingly controversial question: What should I feed my cat? Many discussed the relationship of what people feed their cats to disease.

Dr. Debra Zoran, an internal medicine specialist at Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine, College Station, explained that cats don't require any carbohydrates (nor do dogs).

Cats receiving carbs may potentially derive more energy than they produce, causing obesity. And obesity may cause diabetes and other problems.

Rather than dealing with those problems, preventing obesity is the best course of action, she noted.

Commercial canned diets generally are lowest in carbohydrates. According to Zoran, most cats should be fed some (50 percent is a starting point) canned food throughout life ― both to reduce the carbs they consume, and also to better control calories (dry foods are very calorie-dense) and increase the amount of water consumed daily.

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