This book highlights the most significant diseases for humans and their dogs, cats and horses. The examples discussed, which include allergies, osteoporosis, cancer and many more, illustrate that humans and their companion animals may in fact develop similar diseases.

The reader - whether expert or interested lay - can thus directly compare between human and animal patients. The animal patient thereby represents a natural disease model, which besides the experimental models, is urgently needed to improve the therapeutic options for both humans and animals.

Prof. Erika Jensen-Jarolim is head of the Dept. of Pathophysiology of the Medical University Vienna. She holds an MD and is specialized in pathophysiology and immunology. Based on her active interest in comparative oncology she since 2008 is councilor of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. Her research is dedicated to comparative strategies in order to simultaneously speed up diagnostic and therapeutic developments for human and animal patients, especially in the allergy and oncology fields.