You did not get good news about your pet when you took him in to have his spleen removed. After the veterinary laboratory procedures were completed and the veterinary diagnostics team took X-rays that were required before the procedure, the team announced that they had found masses in your pet’s lungs. Unfortunately, the cancer that was found had metastasized, and the vet tech indicated that, sadly, the pet likely only has a few weeks to live. Left with this devastating news, you now had the equally devastating decision to make about how to proceed.
The loss of a pet is never easy, whether it is the sudden death caused by getting hit by a car, or whether it is a longer, more drawn out process involving what was first thought to be a treatable condition. As helpful as the veterinary diagnostics market products are, the news of a condition that cannot be cured is often the beginning of many other difficult choices.
Whether the animal involved is large or small, a family pet or an animal on a farm, the veterinary diagnostics market is often essential in reaching the best diagnosis and decision. Consider some of these facts and statistics about the veterinary clinical diagnostics market and how it is implemented:

• 70 to 80 million dogs and 74 to 96 million cats are owned in the U.S.
• 2 million people own horses.
• An indication of how important pets are to many families, a PetFinder.com poll found that 63% of dog owners and 58% of cat owners give their pets Christmas presents.
• An estimated 1 million dogs are heartworm positive in the U.S. every year.
• Heartworm treatment costs can reach $1,000, which makes giving a preventive monthly treatment a bargain in comparison.
• While infected dogs may have 30 or more worms in their lungs and hearts.
• Cats, on the other hand, typically have six or fewer, and sometimes only one or two worms. Interestingly enough, however, the severity of heartworm disease in dogs is related to the number of worm, while in cats, just one or two worms can make a cat very ill.