Prostates: Dogs & Humans
Is there a particular reason for dogs and humans being the only animals with prostates?
As far as I can tell from research, no one knows why prostates are restricted to these animals, at least in the sense that they work in roughly the same way. Who knows what circumstances were in place to cause this evolution. But there are some interesting facts regarding prostate cancer in humans and dogs.
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Dr. Waters, please solve the confusion for me and I'm sure our viewers, how does veterinary medicine and the use of dogs relate to human prostate cancer? DW: The dog is the only non-human creature in which prostate cancer naturally occurs with a high degree of frequency. Overall, cancer is the primary cause of death in 40% of dogs. In our work we have seen dogs manifest many of the same cancers as humans, I.e. breast, lymphoma, melanoma, prostate, etc.; thus we concluded that a critical hypothesis could be developed that would attempt to identify prostate cancer markers in dogs that would have relevance for chemoprevention potential for humans. |