Meet the Director

Dr. Withrow is a Professor of Surgical Oncology and the Director of the CSU Animal Cancer Center. Dr. Withrow came to CSU as a general surgeon in 1978 and established the clinical oncology service in 1981 to provide the care that was needed for cancer patients. The clinical oncology service at the CSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital has been growing ever since.

Vision, Integrity and Passion. These are the three guiding principles on which Stephen Withrow, DVM built his career and is the foundation on which the Colorado State University Animal Cancer Center operates.

As the Director of the Animal Cancer Center his goal is to provide a strong infrastructure and environment for innovative teaching, research, and clinical service for pets with cancer. Translating discovery from pets to humans and back again for the benefit of all species is a unique and exciting opportunity in comparative medicine.

Dr. Withrow’s research focuses on surgical oncology, allografts (tissue transplanted from a donor of the same species), companion animal models of cancer for translational research, multimodality cancer treatment, local chemotherapy delivery systems, limb sparing and clinical trials. He is internationally acclaimed for his fundamental contributions to the improvement of limb sparing surgery techniques for dogs and making it a viable option to amputation for animals with bone cancer (osteosarcoma). Through his collaboration with Ross Wilkins, MD, a human orthopedic surgeon, they have improved the limb sparing technique used in humans, mainly children.

Teaching veterinary students, interns, residents and surgical fellows about the diagnosis and treatment of cancer is a passion of Dr. Withrow’s. He helped to establish the medical and radiation oncology residency training programs for graduate veterinarians and the surgical oncology fellowship program for specialist veterinary surgeons to further hone their surgical skills in cancer cases. He has received numerous teaching, service and research awards. CSU awarded Dr. Withrow the University Distinguished Professorship, the highest academic honor at the university, in 2004.

Dr. Withrow graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1972 and completed an internship and surgical residency at the Animal Medical Center in New York City. Post doctorate training in surgical oncology and musculoskeletal biology occurred at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester) and Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston). He is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons and the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (oncology) and the author of over 250 scientific articles and the best know text on veterinary oncology, “Small Animal Clinical Oncology.”

Dr. Withrow is the only veterinarian admitted as a member of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society. He is also a member of the Children’s Oncology Group. He is a past president of the Veterinary Cancer Society and is a member of numerous professional organizations.

Dr. Withrow was recently appointed Director of the Colorado State University Academic Cancer Supercluster and Chief Scientific Officer of NeoTREX^®, the enterprise arm of the Supercluster.

Get to know Dr. Withrow better.