Normally we don’t think of cancer as an infectious disease – but what if we told you there is a contagious cancer, thousands of years old? This cancer is not, however, caused by transmission of a virus. These are cancer cells that can be physically passed on between dogs.
In our new study we found that male dogs are four to five times more likely than female dogs to be infected with the oral and nasal form of canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT). The cancer cells are passed between dogs by sniffing other dogs’ genitals.
