Bone Cancer Pain: New Ideas
ByMany who love a dog with bone cancer need information to make sure pain is managed. Bone cancers are often very painful. Since life quality is so essential for us when making medical choices, we need to always control pain.
Bone cancer is often first noticed as a limp. Many times I have had a dog lover tell me they were worried about arthritis or a sprain, and the diagnosis turned out to be osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, or other bone cancer. This is one reason why it is so critical to get an X-ray done, especially if you have a large breed dog, being more prone to bone cancers.
A new cutting edge treatment for bone cancer pain in dogs is a drug approved for use in humans called Quadramet. It is given as an injection during a hospital stay. Quadramet, also called Samarium- 153-EDTMP, slows the breakdown of bone. In doing so, it helps alleviate pain.
A number of studies have been done. Most show that this treatment helps roughly 60 or 70% of dogs with bone cancer pain. Here is one of the studies for your review.
Quadramet does have some risks, but they appear to be manageable at this time. The drug does tend to suppress the bone marrow, although temporarily. This means that cells like platelets (which help control bleeding) and white blood cells (which fight infection), decrease in numbers.
The good news is that at the doses of Quadramet being used currently, these side effects tend to resolve all by themselves.
The use of this therapy to help with pain is very new, and availability may be limited. Research has been done at the University of Missouri and at the University of Washington.
Not many veterinarians in private practice will have heard of Quadramet or Samarium- 153-EDTMP. However, oncologists will have likely heard of it or may use it. Most using Quadramet will be at advanced veterinary facilities.
As usual, I encourage you to be your dog’s primary health care advocate, and get the info you need!
For more information, click on The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.
All my best,
Dr. D
About the Author
Dr. Demian Dressler, DVM is known as the "dog cancer vet" and is author of Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Beyond Surgery, Chemotherapy & Radiation. Visit his blog and sign up free to get the latest information about canine cancer. Go to http://DogCancerBlog.com.
4 Comments
September 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Many of the holistic options can help ease the pain of cancer, and sometimes can even slow the progress and buy weeks to years of quality time.
Acupuncture and homeopathy should be done by a person really well trained to look at all symptoms, not just the pain. When you are selecting one, ask what information they need. If only the “disease”, they probably do not have this more curative and effective approach.
You can learn reiki (from local healers/teachers, or even on-line) and it is excellent for pain relief.
Other modalities such as flower essences (Rescue Remedy and more), lasers and HTA can be useful.
Keep enjoying every moment. Check out http://www.BrightHaven.org for some incredible stories of animals with and without cancer – living into their 30s.
September 7th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
dog food preservatives can be inorganic phosphates,, salts, that are stored in the bone marrow. I’ve seen a couple of research papers showing that :
1. breast cancer stem cells were originating in the bone marrow,, thought this was interesting.
2. that inorganic phosphates activate the AKT cancer pathway.
so the phosphate is stored in the marrow and the phophate activates perhaps these stem cells that result in the cancer.
It appears that even dogfood needs to be made and consumed locally. The preservatives that allow long shelf life and distant deliveries, kill us and our dogs.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF QUADRAMET IS THE SAME AS PAMIDORNATE AND DOSE IT REACH THE SAME BENIFITS FOR THE DOG
December 7th, 2009 at 7:57 am
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