 Salsa is a house cat. She belongs to Chris Condetti. We asked Chris what Salsa means to his family. She is part of the family. She's always with us. Many people treat their pets like family members. Americans spend large amounts of money on health care for pets. They spent 13 billion dollars on veterinary care in 2010. But the health of animals also has a big influence on medical care for people. At the University of Missouri, Dr. Kim Selting recently completed a study on cancer in cats. I think the the value of what happens for the health of a pet and how it might translate to human health has become has come very much to the forefront. Veterinarians study information about animal health from across the United States at the National Institutes of Health or NIH. Dr. Chand Khanna tests new cancer drugs for dogs. He says those tests may help people with cancer. For the most part every almost every human cancer that occurs occurs in a dog. Veterinarians can do many of the same tests on dogs and cats that doctors can do on human patients. Dr. Khanna says bone cancer develops in the same way in dogs and humans. We've looked at molecular profiles of dog osteosarcoma and human osteosarcoma and we really can't distinguish the dog and the human. And both species react to drugs. Our focus has really been on therapy you know really trying to understand why and how drugs that are intended for human use how we can make them better through their evaluation in dogs with cancer that's our focus. The research provides better care for pets. Treating animals helps researchers learn much more about cancers in a shorter period of time. They age more rapidly their cancers progress more rapidly we can get answers to whether or not something works much more quickly than you could in a human trial. Veterinarians say they are now able to exchange information with human cancer specialists to explore what causes cancers and the best ways to treat them. I'm Mario Ritter.