Chemotherapy For Dogs With Hemangiosarcoma

Hemangiosarcoma hsa is a highly metastatic and often rapidly fatal tumor in dogs.

Chemotherapy for dogs with hemangiosarcoma.

The i m yunity treatment protocol produced no negative side effects and can be. This cancer grows from the walls of blood vessels and is often found in the spleen although sometimes can occur in the liver heart eye skin and other sites in the body. Hemangiosarcoma in the dog tends to resist the effects of chemotherapy generally although there are chemo protocols that exist to try to increase lifespan. Studies performed by university of pennsylvania demonstrate that dogs receiving the coriolus versicolor mushroom extract produced by i m yunity with no other treatment i e.

Dogs who do not have identifiable metastasis at the time of surgery and who are treated with chemotherapy live a median of 6 to 10 months. For example one study published in 1991 found that dogs with splenic hemangiosarcoma who were treated with chemotherapy lived on an average of 271 days. Owners of dogs with hemangiosarcoma hsa may be mislead by the absence of symptoms until the disease is quite advanced. Dogs with internal organ involvement who are treated with surgery alone live an average of only 2 months.

Linus a portuguese water dog is shown here in what his owners thought was the peak of health at an agility trial just two weeks before his sudden death from hsa. Repeat radiographs and ultrasound exams are conducted every 6 to 8 weeks. Dogs treated with surgery alone only lived on 19 to 65 days. Continuous oral administration of low dose chemotherapy ldc has been suggested as an alternative to conventional chemotherapy protocols.

Unfortunately all dogs end up passing away from metastasis or spread of their cancer to other organs even if it is not overt at diagnosis when initially staging the patient. The median survival time for dogs with splenic hsa that receive surgery and chemotherapy is approximately 4 6 months compared to the 1 2 months with surgery alone. The role of radiation therapy for curative treatment of hemangiosarcoma in dogs is limited. At present conventional adjuvant chemotherapy provides only a modest survival benefit for treated dogs.

But turkey tail may really help extend your dog s survival time. At tufts a standard chemotherapy protocol for lymphoma is likely to cost 3 500 to 4 500. Hemangiosarcoma is rarely curable and long term prognosis for dogs with hemangiosarcoma is poor. Once diagnosed dogs should be treated with adjuvant chemotherapy optimally combined with some form of inhibitor of angiogenesis.

As with any medical treatment chemotherapy cost can vary widely depending on the frequency and duration of the treatment the drug s used the medical facility and geographic location. A 2012 study at university of pennsylvania treated hemangiosarcoma dogs with i m yunity an extract of polysaccharopeptide psp from turkey tail mushrooms. No s urgery or chemotherapy lived and average of 199 days while some participants were still alive one year after the study.