What about Ozone Therapy and Dog Cancer?
Dr. Demian Dressler is internationally recognized as “the dog cancer vet” because of his innovations in the field of dog cancer management, and the popularity of his blog here at Dog Cancer Blog. The owner of South Shore Veterinary Care, a full-service veterinary hospital in Maui, Hawaii, Dr. Dressler studied Animal Physiology and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Davis before earning his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University. After practicing at Killewald Animal Hospital in Amherst, New York, he returned to his home state, Hawaii, to practice at the East Honolulu Pet Hospital before heading home to Maui to open his own hospital. Dr. Dressler consults both dog lovers and veterinary professionals, and is sought after as a speaker on topics ranging from the links between lifestyle choices and disease, nutrition and cancer, and animal ethics. His television appearances include “Ask the Vet” segments on local news programs. He is the author of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity. He is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Avian Veterinarians, the National Animal Supplement Council and CORE (Comparative Orthopedic Research Evaluation). He is also an advisory board member for Pacific Primate Sanctuary.
Updated: December 18th, 2018
Ozone therapy is one of those things that people ask about sometimes. Kind of an odd bird, ozone. What’s the deal with ozone therapy and dog cancer?
First of all, what is ozone anyway? Ozone is a gas that can be administered after it is dissolved in liquid, most commonly either IV or as an enema. It is a powerful oxidant.
In cancer, at least two points about oxidation are important. First, oxidation is the process that creates harmful free radicals (reactive oxygen and nitrogen) when the cell cannot eliminate them. Excess free radicals hurts cells (damages the DNA, lipid, protein and more).
Second, the body has ways of combating free radicals naturally (dietary antioxidants, enzymes, pH buffers and more). When the body takes in an oxidant like ozone, the body will crank up it’s natural defenses against the damage caused by the oxidant.
Cancer cells have a tendency to produce lots of free radicals normally. That’s actually a common theme in different cancer types. Their defenses against free radical accumulation are low. Thus, they are running on high gear, producing a lot of free radicals, but are living dangerously since they can barely neutralize their own free radical production.
This is where ozone comes in. There is some evidence that it kills cancer cells in the test tube (see article), which is nice, but lots of things do that. Ozone increases the free radical production in the cancer cells, and these free radicals are toxic to the cancer cell.
The problem is this: often something will kill a cancer cell in the lab but not in the body. A cancer in a petri dish in not a cancer in a dog.
For more helpful tools and information, get a copy of the Dog Cancer Survival Guide
Unfortunately, there was no survival advantage when ozone was actually studied in cancer patients, as you can see. But it did seem to help with side effects from chemo and made the patients feel a bit better. The reason why this occurred seems to be that the ozone therapy boosted the body’s natural antioxidant defense systems. This is kind of like an immunization…a little of the bad stuff in the body boosts its defense.
A kind of neat fact is that ozone, dissolved as a liquid, does kill germs very effectively when applied directly to them. Inhaled ozone is toxic to the surface of the lungs.
What’s the take home message? Basically, I’m not excited about it for dogs with cancer. The pro-oxidant effects do not seem to kill tumors in the body, and these effects initially may not be all that healthy for the body (prior to when the body recovers with it’s own antioxidant surge). Plus, there’s cost and availability issues.
Best to all,
Dr Dressler
Dr. Demian Dressler is internationally recognized as “the dog cancer vet” because of his innovations in the field of dog cancer management, and the popularity of his blog here at Dog Cancer Blog. The owner of South Shore Veterinary Care, a full-service veterinary hospital in Maui, Hawaii, Dr. Dressler studied Animal Physiology and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Davis before earning his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University. After practicing at Killewald Animal Hospital in Amherst, New York, he returned to his home state, Hawaii, to practice at the East Honolulu Pet Hospital before heading home to Maui to open his own hospital. Dr. Dressler consults both dog lovers and veterinary professionals, and is sought after as a speaker on topics ranging from the links between lifestyle choices and disease, nutrition and cancer, and animal ethics. His television appearances include “Ask the Vet” segments on local news programs. He is the author of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity. He is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Avian Veterinarians, the National Animal Supplement Council and CORE (Comparative Orthopedic Research Evaluation). He is also an advisory board member for Pacific Primate Sanctuary.
One study, with as the reviewers stated, a small number of patients is not a good example of the potential benefits of ozone therapy. In Germany it has been used for 50+ years with zero “side” effects. There are many other studies which show the opposite, that ozone does help against cancer. It is not toxic when breathed if bubbled through olive oil, and as such is an excellent treatment for the lungs. It is relatively easy to purchase a medical ozone generator. I am using ozone on my two dogs for a host of issues (they are both 13). Robert
My dog started sneezing about two months ago and occasionally some blood would come out. I used saline nasal spray and it cleared up. About two weeks ago his snout swelled on the right side where the blood came out and I took him to the vet, SPCA clinic, another clinic in Richmond and North Carolina State Veterinary Hospital where they performed a CT scan and a biopsy. I am waiting on the biopsy results to come back. Dr. Barco at NC State said he may need radiation and/or chemo therapy.
Someone told me about ozone therapy and I don’t know of a clinic that practices it in The Hampton Roads area. I have seen a few sites that offer oral medication and I am desperate to try to get this under control. Can you recommend any advice as I cannot rest until this problem is cured? Please E-mail me to let me know.
Kind regards, Mike
Hi Michael
sorry to hear about your loved dog. One thing you should realize is that treatments are based on what is going on with your dog, so recommendations concerning treatment need to be tailored to what is actually causing the swelling, and if it is cancer, then what type, which we don’t yet know at the time of this writing at least.
Before reaching for ozone if you have a cancer diagnosis in your dog, you should educate yourself on the treatment options that are available as opposed to jumping to something that is “outside the box” first. You should get a copy of the Guide– it is easy to read and is designed to address what you may be going through.
Here are some thoughts on ozone, which is a very interesting family of molecules:
https://www.dogcancerblog.com/blog/what-about-ozone-therapy-and-dog-cancer/
Hope this helps
Dr D
Hi, my 9 year old English Cocker Spaniel, Rufo, was diagnosed last year with Anal Gland Adenocarcinoma. He had surgery to remove the tumor and radiation therapy (20 treatments) because the margins of the surgery were not clean. He finished the radiation therapy in September and since November he started to have problems to go to the bathroom, crying and squatting for long time. The abdominal ultrasound showed that the wall of the colon that was in the field of radiation is thickening (6mm). Also, the symptoms suggest that he has inflammation in the rectum. He just finished one month on prednisone and metronidazol but he continues with tenesmus. I would like if you have experience in this kind of late side effect of radiation therapy and if you have any other suggestion that can help him.
Dear Idania,
perhaps you can discuss osalazine or sulfasalazine and tramadol with your vet or oncologist? A drug we used to use that might help to is centrine which may be available.
I hope it helps
d
My Scottiie has been receiving Ozone Therapy for squamous carcinoma of the jaw. He seems to respond well to the treatment. He is also on the Budwig protocol & Dr. Eison anti-cancer protocol. I was also reading about the 100% real
maple syrup mix with alkaline baking soda used as a trojan horse. The syrup tricks the cancer cells & the alkaline baking soda attacks the cancer cell,
There are so many things I have researched that it becomes mind boggling & you don’t know who to trust anymore. My Scottie is mainraining his weight going for walks & I pray this thing has shrunk & keeps going in the positive direction. Somebody has to beat the statistics & he’s perfect & then we can attempt to help others along with my other dog. Having been in the medical field the traditional methods & medications are the same that they used 20 & 30 years ago. Between the FDA,pharmaceutical company’s medical school they would horrified if they didn’t have this big cash cow. It makes you wonder how greedy people get until it happeneds to a being they love.
I also am friends with a person who cured his wife of breast cancer with Ozone therapy. Perhaps we should look at the findings of ozone and more importantly, who conducted the study of ozone therapy? Who was the study funded by? Were there double blind placebo studies conducted? Who were the participants, how many for how long.?
I have a close friend that cure himself of a terminal metastatic cancer with ozone therapy. He has a sauna build for this purpose plus injections. A friend’s father who also know him got his advice after being diagnosed with a recurrent prostate cancer. Three months later he was completely clean. I’m not lying. This is a fact, believe it or not. Maybe it’s not a therapy that laboratories would recommend but for sure it’s something to try.
Dear Francisco,
what type of cancer did your friend have?
What type of injections?
How long has your friend been free of cancer?
We are always looking for info, so thank you in advance!
D
I read the study you sited and it seems to contradict your recommendation against ozone therapy.
The study says: “…ozonetherapy appears to have had some positive effect during the treatment of patients with advanced H&N tumors. The potential usefulness of ozonetherapy as an adjuvant in chemo–radiotherapy for these tumors warrants further investigation.”
Dear Jan
If you read the blog post, there is no recommendation against ozone therapy. The statement is that I am not that excited about it, since it did not yield a survival advantage. The paper summarizes its findings (which is an interesting thing to examine- conclusions reached given the data) as there is are some positive effects, and that it should be looked at some more (investigated further).
We need to be cautious about making black and white statements in these matters.
I hope this clears up the topic
Thanks
Dr D
I wanted to ask a question but wasn’t sure if this is the right place. We just found out first of June our 11 year old lab has osteosarcoma. It all started out really strange. We noticed one of her toenails was becoming large.Took her to our vet and they treated her with antibiotics for infection for 2 week. After two weeks the toe didn’t get better. He then did surgery reomoved the top portion of her toe and sent it off. It came back Osteoblastic Osteosarcoma I. At that point we took her to oncology specialist which removed the other portion of the toe and lymph node. It came back clean. She had her first round of chemo Monday and is doing great. I wondered if you had ever seen this in the toe??? Thanks for your time and comments!
You need to try to ascertain what is the problem in the back end. Is the lympho in her vertebral column? Is it a problem with the vertebrae or an intervertebral disc? Is is just nerve breakdown (degenerative myelopathy)?
Advise X-rays and other diagnostics as appropriate as the treatment for the different causes is different….
By the way, you want low carbs, not really low protein, unless you are doing that for some other reason..
Dr D
aloha,
I have been trying to maintain my dog penny, in a comfortable, manner, and hopefully keep her with
me longer. She had a incident, and I thought I was
going to loose her, however she came back. I was
told to increase her dose of pred. which I did, and it
it seemed to work. She is alert and happy, but, with
one bad, part, she is completely unable use her back
legs. She seems paralized. She can wag her tail, so
I know that part works. She was diagnosed wiht Lumphoma,
about 1 1/2 years ago. I gave her, Q e10, everyday, and
super green capsuels, vit. c, vit, e, and D3, very little grains, but also, a low protien diet. She has stayed around loger than
expected, but now the paralysis is severe. She is incontenant.
What to do from here???
I am in Kihei, and Dr. Dressler, is a good vet, and has treated
my dogs in the past.