Dogs and Cancer: Get the Facts
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Because mixed-breed dogs come from a much larger gene pool, they would be less likely to get genetic-based cancers. But that doesn’t do anything for spontaneous cancers or environmentally caused cancers.
Q: What can I do to help prevent my dog from getting cancer?
A: The biggest thing is spaying your dog. If you spay a dog before its first heat you’ll reduce the chance of mammary cancer eight-fold, just because of the hormonal influence.
Good oral care can help decrease oral cancers. And if you’re buying a purebred dog, check its line to see if there’s a specific kind of cancer in that breed’s line.
But overall, prevention is difficult because we don’t know the causes of most cancers. I think, rather than trying to prevent cancer, identifying it early and treating it quickly is the better strategy.
Q: If my dog has cancer, does that mean he’s going to die?
A: Absolutely not. Probably the majority of the cancers we see can be dealt with surgically. A lot of the breast cancers, a lot of the mast cell tumors, a lot of skin tumors, soft tissue sarcomas, many of those tumors can be removed surgically and are cured. Even in situations where they have advanced to a lymph node, there are options that can prolong your dog’s life and even cure him.
Q: What kinds of treatments are available for dogs with cancer?
A: We have pretty much all the options that are available to people. There’s surgery, obviously. Radiation therapy is available in about 40 facilities around the country. Chemotherapy has become commonplace. Now some places are even doing research and clinical treatment of patients with immunotherapy tumor vaccines, where we’re using the immune system to stimulate the destruction of the cancer.
Q: The FDA approved the first drug for treating canine cancer in dogs in June 2009. What other advancements will we be seeing in the treatment of canine cancers?
A: There have been several things, like the tumor vaccine I just mentioned. There is a new vaccine against oral melanomas, the most common oral tumor. Radiation therapy and technology is expanding so that the machines that we’re using can now treat brain tumors and nasal tumors and deep-seated tumors that previously we couldn’t access surgically.
Veterinary oncology has progressed amazingly in the past two decades. Twenty years ago, most people didn’t even know dogs got cancer. Today it’s common to find people whose dogs have been treated for cancer. There are so many more facilities for treating canine cancer now, and there are veterinarians who do nothing but treat cancer.
Q: What does it cost to treat a dog with cancer?
A: It varies. There’s the diagnostic testing that’s needed prior to doing any kind of therapy, and that can range from $200 to $1,000. Then treating the cancer can range from a simple surgery for $1,000 all the way up to $15,000 if we’re dealing with something complicated that also needs radiation therapy and chemotherapy along with the surgery. They’re even doing bone marrow transplants for dogs with lymphoma. That can be very expensive.
Q: What’s the cure rate for dogs with cancer?
A: Overall, for all malignancies that we see, it’s probably in the 60-plus percent range. There are a lot of patients out there with just lumps and bumps that are being taken off by their regular veterinarian and they have a very good long-term prognosis.
Now if the cancers are left untreated, we’re talking survival times in the months, not years.
(Note: These are costs for top-level treatment at a specialist hospital. Prices for less involved options at a general veterinary practice may be much less. Costs may also vary a lot depending on where you live.)
Source: Web MD
