Humans can have the same medical conditions as an animal, or at least similar ones, so it would make sense for doctors and veterinarians to share information from time to time.

According to the Associated Press, physicians and veterinarians are meeting at the Zoobiquity conference Saturday in New York to discuss such issues. One of the main issues discussed will be breast cancer.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Dr. Larry Norton, a globally recognized expert on breast cancer, will present his findings on the disease prevalent not only in older women, but in Siberian tigers and other large jungle cats.

Other topics will include a gorilla with a seizure disorder, domestic ferrets with tumors and a California sea lion with an eating disorder.

The conference's name comes from the title of a best-selling book by Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz. A cardiologist at UCLA Medical Center, she said 60 percent of diseases affecting humans can also be found in animals.

"I believe I'll learn something from human-line physicians Saturday that could be immediately applied on Sunday to my animal patients, and perhaps they'll learn things from me for their human patients," said Dr. Richard Goldstein, chief medical officer at New York's Animal Medical Center.

Malaria is currently a problem in the U.S. and most cases are from people traveling oversees to India and African countries. Penguins are also known to suffer from the disease and the topic will be discussed at Zoobiquity.

"Animals are models for human diseases and because their life spans are shorter, the progression of a disease is more obvious," Goldstein said.

In one instance where doctors found a treatment for a disease through an animal first is a dog with melanoma treated at New York's Animal Medical Center. The same treatment went on to be used on patients at Sloan Kettering.

Animals are also being treated for mental or psychological issues like anxiety and depression. The fact that an animal cannot communicate its problems will help veterinarians show physicians how to do so with an unresponsive human.

"Vets are treating animals with anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorders, eating disorders, addictions - like wallabies in Tasmania eating poppies," Natterson-Horowitz said. "They look at environmental and genetic factors, and stress, and that informs the human cases."