That's a great question. I think that most lab tests that we would choose to run, we would choose them because of their accuracy. We know that other factors can also call some values to be high when they're not. For instance, the heart test for cats, the BNP test—we know that if they have thyroid disease or something else going on, that could elevate that superficially or inadvertently, and it may not necessarily be an abnormal value.

We're looking at the physical exam combined with the history, clinical signs, and blood work. Let’s say we have a cat that's running a high fever, and they are dehydrated. We’re going to expect certain values, like perhaps some of the kidney values, to be elevated when this doesn’t necessarily mean kidney disease. But it is affecting the kidneys because of other problems. We would interpret that with everything else going on.

There are many different lab tests. We've talked about some of those. It may be a routine screen of infection for cats, which is very common—feline leukemia or FIV test. Lab tests can also be something other than blood work. We've talked about blood work, but other routine lab tests could be a stool check on your pet for parasites. It could also be a urine check, so there are many different lab tests that we can run.

I think that they're very effective. Lab tests give us answers to many of our questions. Even if everything is, quote-unquote, normal, then that means it rules out things. Normal can be good in certain situations. We think about normal being good. But sometimes we think that that was a wasted test, but it's not because we have ruled out certain things, even if the numbers and values come back normal. Stress can cause an elevation in blood sugar, which is why we wouldn't get too excited about it if we saw that in a stressed pet.

That's a great question. Yes and no. Certain values might help us determine if there's a risk or an indication of cancer. But I typically say that there's not an exact cancer test on routine blood work. The thing with cancer is it can hide, and many times that can come up from pet to pet that the blood work looks great, but the pet still has a huge problem going on. It depends on the type of blood work that's run. One of the viral tests, feline leukemia, can be determined by a blood test. We worry about that causing cancer in cats.

Often it can. Combined with the physical exam and the history of clinical signs of what's going on at home, your cat could be diagnosed with certain diseases or problems.