When our girl was diagnosed with OS our initial treatment was going to be palliative. Then we weighed the odds with breakage and decided to go the amputation route. Again, initially we decided no chemo… but we were swayed by the positive results and minimal side effects and so my husband and I decided to try at least one round to see how she faired. So..it's hard for me to say I have regrets because we thoroughly researched and believed that we are doing the best thing for our girl…. HOWEVER chemo did NOT turn out well for us.

Sandy is a 13 year old golden retriever. She had her left front leg amputated Jan 5, 2010 and started chemo on Jan 19. She was given carboplatin. 4 days post chemo she had mild diarrhea which she got through no problem. She had her CBC checked at day 10 and it was great. We were very happy with how well she appeared to come through her first round of chemo and were getting ready for the next.

…then yesterday, Feb 3, 14 days post initial chemo, she crashed. Her temperature soared, she had major diarrhea, nausea and wouldn't eat. I brought her to the emergency hospital and she is there as I write this post. Not much change in 24 hours. She is in ICU and although stable, very concerning. Her white blood cell count is zero and she has a raging infection and there is concern about sepsis. They believe she may have pneumonia. There are many other details about heart, blood pressure, plateletts… but I'm exhausted…

I am lucky to live in an area that has a teaching hospital so I know the care and expertise are second to none, and I am trying to be positive.

Chemo does carry risks and if you happen to fall within those few with major consequences, all the positive results don't really matter. In the end, you can only do what you believe is best for both you and your furkid and hope for the very best.

Regret is tough to say because no one holds a crystal ball (if you do have one though I'd like to borrow it). Perhaps it is more about coming to terms with an unfortunate outcome of a well intended path of care and treatment.

Still hopeful..
Rosemary and Sandy

Admin referenced this thread in another recent forum post and I remember how useful it was to us when we were making the chemo decision.  I thougt maybe we could refresh the information since the posts are from over a year ago.  So here goes, c'mon members, feel free to chime in: 

Tate was diagnosed with histiocytic sarcoma last February.  The cancer was in his hip joint with lysis in the surrounding bone.  Nothing appeared odd about the lymph nodes; they didn't take any out with the amp which was a disappointment because with this cancer, localized vs. disseminated is the key.  Anyway, clean x-ray, clean abdominal ultrasound, 4 years old, no other health issues and this cancer is very aggressive so we decided to do chemo.  The plan was 4 rounds of CCNU, 6 if he'd tolerate them.  We started 3 weeks after his amp, pills we gave him at home. 

No issues to speak of after the first 2 treatments but then he was sick after the third…details are in his blog.  It wasn't clear at that time if it was from the chemo, there was so much else going on.  But after his fourth (reduced) dose, he had milder symptoms so it seems it was a side effect.  We stopped after that.  He had another chest x-ray after the third and it was clean.

Now he's on metronomics, cytoxan.  We considered palladia but decided against it because of potential side effects.

Regrets – none.  I don't know how Tate would be doing without chemo but we've done everything we can afford and he's in a good place right now.

Abby did very well on 6 rounds of Carbo – she threw up only a handful of times over the 6 rounds. Her appetite was fine during the whole thing, although we did have to play "Guess What The Dog Will Eat" after each treatment and it was always something different. Towards the end of the treatments… maybe about the 5th round, it started to affect her energy level and she got VERY tired on walks, but she bounced back quickly after the final treatment.

Not sure about doing MP (metronomic protocol) if she has no mets once the carbo is done. I believe others have done that. We did MP right away (Palladia and Cytoxan at first, then just Cytoxan) because she had a met in her lungs. Some of this info is in my sig below and you can go back on her more detailed blog if you want to see more about how she did on the carbo and MP.

It's my opinion that the MP helps. I think the mets would be more plentiful/larger if we had done nothing. We hope they are buying us good time.

As for blood work, our onc always just did it before each subsequent carbo treatment, to make sure the white cell count was OK to do that day's treatment. I don't believe they can tell if the cancer has spread from a blood test – but I could be wrong. Abby also gets her blood checked every month now w/ the Cytoxan to make sure her kidneys are functioning ok. (So far her blood work is always perfect.)

Hope that helps.

As for the main topic of this post… I have no regrets with doing chemo. I think it is buying us extra time with our girl. We are doing what I call a "halflistic" approach with MP and some hollistic supplements as well. I just wish we had started the hollistic stuff a bit sooner – but then, we couldn't have really since we tried the Palladia, and Palladia and artemisinin are not supposed to be given together. We are doing our best and she's hung in there quite well for 10 months now. Hopefully we get many more months!

It seems like nearly all of the dogs for chemo in this post had bone cancer except for one with a mast cell tumor.  Has anyone done chemo for a soft tissue sarcoma?  Spencer is 1 week post amp (and kicking butt) due to a large, level 3 fibrosarcoma.  One of the vets at our clinic has told me that generally fibrosarcomas 1) don't spread and 2) don't respond to chemo.  However they also generally are not aggressive or level 3 tumors… so who know with Spencer's.

The lymph nodes came back clean.  They say the main concern is it coming back locally.  

The other vet is talking with an oncologist about Spencer.  I hope to talk to him tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm just looking for information on anyone who has chosen either to do or not do chemo for a fibrosarcoma.