Where is veterinary medicine headed?

Because funding is limited in veterinary medicine, organ replacement therapies are likely to lean on technologies currently used for human organ replacement therapy.

As human organ replacement makes advances, parallel therapies may be borrowed and transferred for use in animals. Tissue engineering is on the horizon for many therapeutic areas of human medical care. Such developments have the potential to become a promising means to repair and restore defective and failed organs in animals.

However, until the therapies are developed well enough so they may be offered inexpensively, the majority of pet owners will not be willing to pay for the therapy. Thus, organ replacement therapy in animals is limited to those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford such costly procedures for their pets.

Because human organ replacement therapy is on the rise, animal testing of the developing techniques and surgeries of human organ replacement is concurrently increasing. Animal testing for organ replacement therapies used in humans will give rise to increased study of animal organ replacement, leading to further developments in the animal therapies. This will likely be a major source of advancement in animal organ replacement.

One drawback of these advances will be the animal rights groups that oppose testing on animals. Their protests and legislations will likely decrease the speed at which advances in the field of organ replacement may take place, hindering development of animal organ replacement.

As stem cell research moves forward, reproductive cloning may become a real option for pet owners who can afford it. Though the technology currently exists, it is costly and surrounded by fierce ethical debate. However, reproductive cloning offers pet owners and breeders the advantage of creating a newborn identical copy of their beloved animal without traumatizing surgical procedures which are accompanied by serious risks.

The future holds promising options for pet owners who want to prolong the lives of their furry friends. The question, then, is where does a pet fanatic draw the line?