Sorry for the delay, we had to change Lexy's oncology visit to this morning at 9am. The visit went great and it was very informative! This is what I got from the visit.
When dogs have cancer there are three ways to deal with it from a traditional standpoint: surgery, chemo & radiation. When dealing with nasal adenocarcinoma, surgery has been shown to be vastly ineffective. Since nasal cancer is limited to one area of the body, chemo also is not a good choice. With Lexy's type of cancer radiation is the ticket! With the right treatment, radiation can not only shrink the tumor but can make the cancer go into remission.
Of course with all things, there are many variables to consider and the outcome of the treatment strongly depends on those variable. The dogs age, size of the tumor, cancer cell rate, number of treatments, strength of the treatments, and side effects all play a major role in how effective the treatment is. From what the doctor explained Lexy is in very good health, her tumor is big but growing at a very slow rate, and she has a very low grade version of this cancer. She was very confident that if we did the treatments we're looking at at least another 1.5 years with Lexy, maybe even more!
The doctor gave us three package options, and I'm not going to lie, they were all very very pricey (2-7k). I discussed with a friend of mine that has done radiation\chemo with his dog to see what his experience was. He put it to me this way, the dog does suffer a little, but if it gives then back a good amount of time and maybe some relief within that time, it's totally worth it. Think about it, Lexy is 10, if she gets 2 more years that's 20% of her life, would you suffer for a few weeks and a few thousand dollars to get 20 years back on your own life? If the answer is yes then maybe you should just figure it out and do the treatments, your dog has loved you unconditionally and they deserve everything you can do for them.
The doctor gave us three package options: Aggressive 20 treatments (5times\week for 4 weeks), Not Aggressive (1time\week for 4 weeks), and a nice happy medium included in a clinical trial. The happy medium is the one we are leaning towards, it's 5times\week for 2 weeks, plus a drug trial. The drug is a FDA approved cancer drug already being used, its just never been used for this type of nasal cancer. For radiation the side effects are irritated skin & hair loss on the area being treated, dry eyes, lethargy, nausea, and loss of appetite, all depending on the dog and the amount and strength of the treatments. For the drug, the doc said the worst she's seen is diarrhea.
We haven't made a definite decision, but we know we want to do something, just not something that may cause her too much discomfort. I want to give her some relief and do whatever I can to extend her life, while simultaneously keeping in mind her mental well being. Lexy is a tough cookie though, and I think she can deal with 2 weeks of some irritation to get back 2 years of her life.
Here's more info on the trial:
http://www.rbvh.net/trialdetails.php?Nasal-Carcinoma-2
We're going to a holistic vet tomorrow to get their take on radiation and see what options they have for us. Thanks for the support, check back soon!
http://www.dogcancerblog.com/radiation-therapy-and-dog-cancer/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643460/
http://www.veterinarycancer.com/nasal_tumors.html
When dogs have cancer there are three ways to deal with it from a traditional standpoint: surgery, chemo & radiation. When dealing with nasal adenocarcinoma, surgery has been shown to be vastly ineffective. Since nasal cancer is limited to one area of the body, chemo also is not a good choice. With Lexy's type of cancer radiation is the ticket! With the right treatment, radiation can not only shrink the tumor but can make the cancer go into remission.
Of course with all things, there are many variables to consider and the outcome of the treatment strongly depends on those variable. The dogs age, size of the tumor, cancer cell rate, number of treatments, strength of the treatments, and side effects all play a major role in how effective the treatment is. From what the doctor explained Lexy is in very good health, her tumor is big but growing at a very slow rate, and she has a very low grade version of this cancer. She was very confident that if we did the treatments we're looking at at least another 1.5 years with Lexy, maybe even more!
The doctor gave us three package options, and I'm not going to lie, they were all very very pricey (2-7k). I discussed with a friend of mine that has done radiation\chemo with his dog to see what his experience was. He put it to me this way, the dog does suffer a little, but if it gives then back a good amount of time and maybe some relief within that time, it's totally worth it. Think about it, Lexy is 10, if she gets 2 more years that's 20% of her life, would you suffer for a few weeks and a few thousand dollars to get 20 years back on your own life? If the answer is yes then maybe you should just figure it out and do the treatments, your dog has loved you unconditionally and they deserve everything you can do for them.
The doctor gave us three package options: Aggressive 20 treatments (5times\week for 4 weeks), Not Aggressive (1time\week for 4 weeks), and a nice happy medium included in a clinical trial. The happy medium is the one we are leaning towards, it's 5times\week for 2 weeks, plus a drug trial. The drug is a FDA approved cancer drug already being used, its just never been used for this type of nasal cancer. For radiation the side effects are irritated skin & hair loss on the area being treated, dry eyes, lethargy, nausea, and loss of appetite, all depending on the dog and the amount and strength of the treatments. For the drug, the doc said the worst she's seen is diarrhea.
We haven't made a definite decision, but we know we want to do something, just not something that may cause her too much discomfort. I want to give her some relief and do whatever I can to extend her life, while simultaneously keeping in mind her mental well being. Lexy is a tough cookie though, and I think she can deal with 2 weeks of some irritation to get back 2 years of her life.
Here's more info on the trial:
http://www.rbvh.net/trialdetails.php?Nasal-Carcinoma-2
We're going to a holistic vet tomorrow to get their take on radiation and see what options they have for us. Thanks for the support, check back soon!
http://www.dogcancerblog.com/radiation-therapy-and-dog-cancer/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643460/
http://www.veterinarycancer.com/nasal_tumors.html
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