Tripawds Three Legged Dog & Cat Forum Archives

…surgery that I completely forgot to post up about the post-amputation biopsy results. There was some speculation that the first biopsy which showed chondrosarcoma may have been wrong and that what he has might have actually been osteosarcoma. Well come to find out, thank God, that the cancer is NOT osteo and…

…it is chondrosarcoma. Both biopsies said chondro. Its still a cancer but soooo much better than osteo. The prognosis is a heck of a lot better. He could potentially…

…live a full life!! What's even better is that we caught the cancer while it was still a grade 1/low level tumor. Chondrosarcoma metastasizes in less than 10% of dogs with low grade tumors and since the tumor was removed with the amp surgery we have high hopes for our boy!!

…. A few days later on 9-16-12 we were sadly given the news that our boy Meeko does have cancer. Luckily though we were told that it is not osteosarcoma and is instead a much milder form of cancer known as chondrosarcoma. Chondrosarcoma is cartilage cancer and is locally aggressive, but very rarely…

…hearing the news of Meeko's diagnosis told us to go see his friend who is a veterinarian for a third opinion. Since we knew we weren't dealing with osteosarcoma we felt okay taking a few more days to go see yet another vet. This third vet took our biopsy results and consulted with an oncology colleague at U…

…of Penn. We were saddened to hear that the oncologist at U of Penn thinks it might be osteosarcoma after all. Come to find out, the biopsy samples were small pieces and he didn't feel confident in their reliability from a diagnostic point of view

…infection and we started him on anti-fungal medication and antibiotics pending the results of all the lab tests. At first the biopsy came back as a chondrosarcoma but on further review, it was thought most likely to be an osteosarcoma. 

Naturally, we were devastated. In hindsight, it was clear that the…

…x-rays showed no sign of metastasis and he had the surgery to amputate his right hind limb on July 3, 2012. The final biopsy indeed did show an osteosarcoma.

Of course, he did GREAT after the surgery and was back at dog park 2 weeks later! We started chemotherapy on him right away (alternating

… thanks for your response. Teddy lost his leg to cancer, though thankfully, it turned out to be chondrosarcoma instead of osteosarcoma. I just got back from the clinic. Teddy is there now. The vet (not the one who did the surgery, the same practice but surgeon is on vaccation)

…Center, we asked him some questions that Tripawds members often ask, such as:

“Can Removal of the Primary Tumor Expedite Metastasis in Dogs with Osteosarcoma?”
Dr. Chretin states that in a small pilot study at a veterinary teaching hospital (likely Colorado State University), researchers studied a…

…VCA Animal Hospital.

Will Radiation Help if Postponing Amputation?
Another study at Colorado State University showed that a large percentage of osteosarcoma dogs who were treated with stereotactic radiation therapy instead of amputation had good long-term survival rates. Instead of succumbing to sudden…

…attempting to removing the tumor. This is why amputation is often the recommended treatment.

Moving down the leg, clinical studies show that if osteosarcoma is below the wrist, those patients tend to do better and live longer even without chemotherapy. The cancer will still spread but it seems to take…

…longer. Unfortunately, it's rare for osteosarcoma to present itself in that location.

What about limb sparing for lower extremity tumors?
Limb sparing is often presented as an option for dogs who…

…clips with Dr. Chretin that offer informative advice about canine bone cancers, such as:

Cisplatin and Doxorubicin Side Effects in Dogs
Canine Chondrosarcoma and Chemotherapy
Thoughts about combining holistic and traditional oncology therapies

Tripwds sends sincere thanks to Dr. Chretin and his helpful…

…allowing us to bring this impawtant information to you!

Recommended Reading

North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine: Osteosarcoma in Dogs

PubMed: Palliative radiation therapy for canine osteosarcoma

PDF: Bone Cancer in Greyhounds, Dr. Guillermo Couto, DVM, dip. ACVIM
…

…
Dr. Charles Louis Davis, DVM Foundation: Outline of Veterinary Skeletal Pathology

Veterinary Practice News: How to Treat Osteosarcoma When Surgery is Refused

All content Copyright Tripawds.com, July 2011. If you like this article enough to mention it on your website, we simply

…our visit with Dr. Johnny Chretin, head of oncology at VCA Animal Hospital West Los Angeles Oncology Center, we wanted to know a little more about chondrosarcoma in dogs.

Chondrosarcoma in Dogs

According to the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, chondrosarcoma is the second most common primary tumor…

…of the axial and appendicular skeleton, after osteosarcoma. Only five to 10 percent of all primary canine bone tumors are of this type. However, compared to osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma is uncommon. Like osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma is a metastatic disease that spreads.

Chondrosarcoma is often found in cartilage of flat bones like the ribs, but sometimes…

…presents itself as apendicular disease on thigh and leg bones. At first glance, it looks like osteosarcoma but it's a slower moving disease. The tumors are much more resistant to chemotherapy than other types. As a result, surgery is the primary way to…

…video, chemotherapy is "a long shot" and has not been shown to be as effective in treating it.

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Chemotherapy and Chondrosarcoma

Like many cancers, chondrosarcoma behaves similarly in dogs and people. And unfortunately when it comes to treating it with chemotherapy, the…

… it's not considered to be effective or a good option.

Dr. Chretin states that there haven't been any good, large scale studies done on dogs with chondrosarcoma who were treated with chemotherapy. However, plenty of studies done with humans indicate that the odds of success are just as slim for dogs.
…

…know, it's probably not going to work for the majority of dogs.”

Although Dr. Chretin doesn't recommend chemotherapy as a primary treatment for chondrosarcoma, if the dog isn't a candidate for surgery, the tumor can be treated with radiation therapy to alleviate pain. However Dr. Chretin cautions clients…

…thanks to Dr. Chretin and his helpful staff for allowing us to bring this impawtant information to you!

Recommended Reading:

Vet Info: Chondrosarcoma in Dogs

American College of Veterinary Surgeons: Bone Tumors in Cats and Dogs

Tripawds Discussion Forums: Chondrosarcoma

Tripawds News Blog

…welcome from us! Our Golden Retriever Catie lost her right foreleg too but due to osteosarcoma. Not familiar with chondrosarcoma but hope you can find some answers to make an informed decision about future treatment; however, the most important thing is, as Jerry's Pack said,

…Shelby and Shelby's Family.  I don't have any info on chondrosarcoma (our dog Max had osteosarcoma), but I just wanted to welcome you to Tripawds.  You will most likely hear from others here that have some info on chondrosarcoma.  Shelby is a

…and she is now up running, playing and chasing the other dogs.

Today we received the patho report and learned that, thankfully, it was not osteosarcoma but a more rare Chondrosarcoma.  Unfortunately this diagnosis leaves us with more questions than answers when it comes to treatment. 

Her…

…statistics on treating it with chemo.  Speaking with the oncology department we were told they will treat it with chemo ( the same chemo used for osteosarcoma); however, they can not tell us if it is effective in treating this type of cancer.

Has anyone treated Chondrosarcoma with chemo?  Did it help?

…this:  I got through surgery day by obsessing over this website all day.  My 8 year old black Lab Ajax also had a type of soft tissue sarcoma (chondrosarcoma; tumor of the cartilage; falls in the same category as soft tissue sarcoma medically, though often discussed in books and articles along w/ osteosarcoma). 

Ajax's amputation was 23 days ago - just a little bit before Honey's - and he's doing awesome.  I have no videos b/c I am tech challenged,

…anesthesia either, I totally get it.

__ Can't remember who said this - but yes, I have asked every single doctor "how sure are we that it is chondrosarcoma and not osteosarcoma" and they say "very sure."  I think based on both how it presents, and the chunky biopsy they took.  It was a major question

…COMPLETELY understand your dilemma.     I have no experience with Chondrosarcoma as Tai was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, in which amputation is almost always the course of action. It sounds like a difficult decision and you're getting different opinions. Someone on

…just posted in another topic of yours, but we were told probably chondrosarcoma and it turned out to be osteosarcoma. The x-ray showed the tumor originating in the ulna...osteosarcoma in the forelimb is almost always in the radius.  The x-ray showed the tumor…

…to be affecting the neighboring bone...osteosarcoma will never jump to a neighboring bone.  The tumor was partially hard and partially squishy...can't explain that one   Everything was pointing to chondrosarcoma, so imagine our surprise when the pathology report came back confirming a high-grad highly-active osteosarcoma tumor.  We were shocked and I was…

…the best life we are able to provide for them.  As long as they get their food, their love, and their treats, they don't care whether they have chondrosarcoma, osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, blah-ba-dee-blahsarcoma, or any other other disease with the combination of sarc and oma in the name.  You're in

…do was wait.  He had been limping on and off for 8 months before the tumor became visible and our doctor and oncologist thought it was probably chondrosarcoma because of the bone it was in (the ulna not the normal radius...or the other way around?).  I somehow knew Jack would be fine, and he proved…

… amputation was all that I even considered, and it has allowed me to enjoy over a year with the Captain despite his high grade, highly productive osteosarcoma diagnosis.  The decision is personal and I believe that someday soon you will just know what the right answer will be.  We are very supportive of

….  Search "chrondrosarcoma" and "radiation as an alternative to amputation" to find my posts.

Basically, my 8 year old Lab was diagnosed with chondrosarcoma - another soft tissue sarcoma, in the cartilage, also level 1, lungs clean, no pain in leg, running, jumping, swimming, allowing it to be pushed,…

… and live dogs that tripawds do awfully well, but also want to keep in mind that in many cases amputation is really the only treatment option (osteosarcoma is painful and more aggressive).

… thanks, I think I did it correctly this time.  (Not much of a blogger/poster).  I did search chondrosarcoma and radiation, both here and elsewhere.  Not a lot of info.  I am guessing that there may be one or more reasons for this:  a) I've read that…

…he plays with or any of his doctors.

After reading some of the posts, I am now interested in learning about anyone who had a diagnosis of chondrosarcoma that actually turned out to be something else.  I have seen a few of those posts.  I asked this question of my doctors - "how sure are we that it…

…is a chondrosarcoma and not an osteosarcoma"? and they said they were sure, but the posts have given me some concern.

No matter what choice we make now, there is strong chance he will

…always a pretty crazy dog.

The thorough pathology is done on the leg, since they have a better sample than they had with the biopsy. Sometimes osteosarcoma becomes chondrosarcoma (yay) or hemangiosarcoma (boo). And they grade it as aggressive, super-aggressive or madly-aggressive. Things like

…post-mortem so that maybe we could get to the bottom of what happened to him.

The lung mets and the liver both came back "metastatic malignant osteosarcoma".  OS???  This was a shock, as he was never diagnosed with OS.  He started limping in April, the xray LOOKED like classic OS, but…

…the lesion never worsened.  Until it did suddenly worsen in the October xray and we amputated then.  The biopsy then came back Chondrosarcoma.  Which was again odd as that is a cartliage cancer and it was in the center of the humerus.

What we believe happened: 

The…

…felt it had been there for a long while.  We were doing leg and chest xrays all summer, but never the abdomen.

And we believe that the chondrosarcoma biopsy result was quite possibly "Chondroblastic osteosarcoma" and was mistaken.

The good thing is that this knowledge doesn't change anything…

…after all and had a relatively long life (for them).

I hope that this helps someone doing research and facing decisions.  If you get a Chondrosarcoma diagnosis that didn't originate near cartliage, you may want to ask for input on the likelihood it is still Chondroblastic Osteosarcoma.  Also,

…too.  Back in April '09, I found out that Raven's limping was a classic looking bone lesion in his upper humerus.  The xray looked like osteosarcoma and the vet wanted to prepare me that it was 95% chance it was.  I was crushed.
I took Raven and my dear friend that has known him his whole…

… *sigh*  But, hindsight, oh well.  Amputation immediate.
But, this roller coaster ride wasn't over.  We got the biopsy back as chondrosarcoma instead of osteosarcoma...so that's better again than I had suspected.  Today Raven is as good as he ever was.  And not limping any

…Dawn and Raven: I don't know anything about chondrosarcoma---but just yesterday we were at the vet having Romeo's abundance of fatty tumors checked out . Romeo was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and had his…

…up everywhere. Admittedly, I'm constantly examining Romeo for every little thing theses days. The vet assured us they were not related to the osteosarcoma (he physically examined them).  He felt the only concern was in case the one in Romeo's groin and/or leg affected his gait or

…any forced pressure on her sinuses.

You know folks, I am an avid reader, I love to learn new things, but I never wanted to learn things like: Osteosarcoma, Chondrosarcoma, Metastisis, and on and on.  Just like I never wanted to learn the ins and outs of Pancreatic Failure and Feline Renal failure

…news--I think???  Thank you everyone for the input!
 
Chondrosarcoma is a cartliage cancer.  So, it doens't make sense that it originated in the middle of the humerus bone (why we thought we were dealing with osteosarcoma). 
 
The concern is that his origin may in fact his nasal cavity (more common in sinus and ribs), he's had a runny nose/sneezing

…we got our diagnosis of osteosarcoma, our oncologist thought Jack had chondrosarcoma (he had an unusual tumor placement where OS does not normally form).  She said that had it been chondrosarcoma, amputation most likely would

…Dawn:

Here's the brief layman's terms as it was described to me by our oncologist.

Chondrosarcoma--if you are going to have cancer, this is what you hope. Usually.....if there is no appearance of lung mets at the time of amputation, then…

…there's a high probability that the amputation got it all.  However, in our doctor's case, if we had been diagnosed with chondrosarcoma, she still would have suggested chemo just to be sure.  There's 'levels' of chondrosarcoma also, and the doctor will explain those to you.

…

…

Tika was diagnosed with chondroblastic osteosarcoma, how to explain that, I don't know exactly what the chondroblastic meant (probably type of cell) but the bad news was osteosarcoma, because osteosarcoma as I understand metastasizes easier.

Definitely search the web, you might not understand everything you read, but it will definitely help you…

…and for last December it reads:  From what Tim (my husband) is understanding from the vet and oncologist, we hope for the diagnosis to be chondrosarcoma.

That might sound odd, but when you learn more, it will probably make sense...

--Kim and Tika

…for the update!  That would be great if it turned out to be chondrosarcoma (isn't it weird that we're hoping for a specific type of cancer???!).  We were told ours was probably chondrosarcoma because of the…

…unusual location of the tumor (in the "wrong" bone of Jack's wrist), so we were shocked when it turned out to be osteosarcoma!  But over 4 months later he's feistier than when he was a puppy!  Once Chipper heals and gets used to life on 3 legs, you'll find that

…- suggested amputation plus complete hemipelvectomy). We met with an oncologist yesterday, and he felt that there was a chance that this is not osteosarcoma. There are two additional lesions in the same bone - but he said that is not a normal way to present, so there is a small chance that we are…

…dealing with chondrosarcoma or even a fungal infection. Chondrosarcoma is fully treatable if they can remove it all, so just the chance that he could be cancer free after this surgery was enough for us! The

….    Reba is a 5 year old mastiff who had her left hind leg amputated 13 days ago.  While the initial biopsy suggested it was a chondrosarcoma the biopsy of the amputated tumor came back 2 days ago as an osteosarcoma.    The last 13 days have been rough but her progress

…our surprise when we got the x-ray 2 days later and found it was a tumor!  Then our oncologist said the tumor was in an abmornal bone for osteosarcoma and appeared to be affecting the neighboring bone, so it was more likely to be a chondrosarcoma.  Imagine our surprise when the results came…

…back as osteosarcoma!  What I've begun to realize is that the statistics you read on the internet and such really make no difference.  Each dog is different

…hear about your news.  You may have come across some of our posts. I also have a malamute, who is just 4 1/2 years old and is diagnosed with osteosarcoma.

Today is Tikaani's 4 month anniversary of her amputation.  She is happy, healthy, sassy and pretty much the same as she always once sans…

…the post amputation biopsy, it was an unnecessary addition to what Tika had to go through, and since the initial came back with a false positive for chondrosarcoma, it also raised my husband's and I's hopes up just to have the trashed. 

Good luck, keep us posted.

-Kim and Tika-bear

…is often mis-read as chondrosarcoma or fibrosarcoma on the path report because it can be very hard for the pathologist to be sure since some of these cells look similar under the scope