Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Hi All, I have posted about this product a couple of times in the past. But I thought I would do it again as the company continues to expand and successfully treat cancer in a variety of pets (dogs, cats, horses).
Here is a great website of a dog recently treated that had a baseball sized tumor on its paw. It was treated with a single treatment (done with moderate sedation because treatment involves multiple injections that must be done with precision). As shown, three months later the same area was largely healed and the dog was walking normally.
https://www.rad.....rapy-pets/
It can be used for any sarcoma near the surface, even small ones that can be surgically removed, but it is usually used to treat cancer's that were not successfully removed via surgery or are located in an area that prevents the use of surgery. Many of the treatments are done with the specific goal of preventing amputation. They recently started testing treatment for mast tumors, but I don't know if they are routinely treating that tumor type.
How it works:
The product is infused with Yi-90. It is the radiation that kills the tumor. So it is using a well understood technique to kill cancer. It how it gets the radiation to the tumor that is 'new'. When temperatures are moderate, the product is a liquid and can be put into a syringe. When the material is injected into a tumor the warmth of the body causes the liquid to turn to a solid which fixes the material in lace inside the tumor (versus leaking into surrounding tissue). The radioactivity decays quickly being gone in a couple of weeks. It is also a type of radioactive particle that loses its affect quickly with distance and is easily shielded (with plastic wrap rather than lead blanket). So little risk to others. But most importantly since the radiation doesn't travel far from the material, nearby tissue and organs are not negatively affected by the radiation.
The material is naturally absorbed into the body so no further treatment is needed after the treatment. So a tumor is treated with a single visit to the vet, getting a treatment that only involves multiple injections and then going home and managing the wound as the tumor dies and decays. Pets are up and running around in just days. The example above was a very large tumor so it required management of the dead and dying tissue. Smaller tumors (1 inch and less diameter) do not have the wound management issues.
The same company is getting close to getting limited approval of the product for use in humans to treat tumors in the thyroid (that is the application area that doctors at the Mayo clinic doctors to use it..the Mayo clinic doctors are going to run the clinical trials to get approval for use in humans).
The company now offers the procedure in not only Wa, but also Mo, and Md. The Md location is John Hopkins university vet clinic. So with Mayo human physicians and John Hopkins vets behind it you can be assured it is a viable treatment. They plan to expand to more sites in the coming year.
Details on those and how to submit a request to be considered for treatment is here:
https://www.rad.....l-clinics/
It seems like an amazing product that not enough pet parents are aware of. It costs about the same as it would of you got you pet treated with external radiation (given via those large machines). I think it is about $10k (yes expensive! 🙁 ). The more patients they get the lower the price will be because the cost is mostly to create the material. If they can treat 5 animals at a time that cost is split 5 ways.
Thank you for sharing! There is a mention of this therapy elsewhere in the forums but I'm on my phone now and will search for it later so I can post it here.
I'm glad to know this is still being offered. I almost interviewed the Washington vet who does this treatment but never connected. Might have to try again so we can get more details.
Hi Jerry,
If you haven't gotten around to talking to Vivos or Vista Vet about the product. The radiogel product product (called IsoPet now). Its being offered in more places around the country and have done the procedure on more pets. They are about to get through the last of the FDA hurdles to treat humans. Please think about making pet parents with soft tissue tumors near the surface of the skin aware of this. It can change a pets life in allowing it to keep its limb. If I were a pet parent with a tumor on a foot and I cut off the limb only to see this option soon after I would regret it forever. It works because radiation works (no question about that).
Cost is still high but as they bring more clinics on line they are working to move to treat multiple patients at once decrease cost substantially. The biggest cost is creating the gel for the procedure...with such a short half life that radiation is depleted in 10 days they have to make it just before the procedure and ship it out quickly.
They have cleaned up their website because they think they will be approved for human trials this summer.This link has some images of pets treated.
https://isopet......-treatment
Here is the list of clinics that offer the product (some treat only horses...). I think they are working to get clinics in Texas and Florida next.
https://isopet......al-clinics
To be honest as a person if I had a soft tumor on my arm and was looking at getting a massive chunk of my arm remove and external beam radiation for weeks, or just having a out patient procedure to ingest a bunch of gel into the tumor and surrounding tissue I would pick the latter. So I hope it does become available to humans soon!
I still miss my little Nyaya, especially how she always looked to crawl into my arms to get carried if she was getting tired, needed down or up anywhere or if I made the motion that I needed her to let me pick her up. Some dogs just imprint hard on us. But its a good missing. This pet is a wonderful resource for pet parents facing an awful situation, thank you!
Otter it's so good to hear from you! Thank you so much for updating us on the isopet, I see I never added the link to their website here so thank you for this news. It's really fascinating, and very hopeful! The closes thing we've seen to this is electrochemotherapy , which not too many vets practice here in the States. I'm going to reach out to isopet today to request an interview for tripawd talk .
Nyaya was a very special girl indeed, and always will be! I love sharing her story.
Thank you for arranging this! I'm really hoping to hear they are working on lowering price. A great treatment doesn't help anyone if no one can afford it.
It definitely can't be used for bone cancers and is only pallitive if the cancer has already spread. But it is a good choice for pets facing a soft tissue tumor on a limb (not much extra tissue to remove..hence vets tend to amputate) or in an area that surgery would be a bad choice. An example of the latter is a pet parent whose dog had an anal rectal tumor treated with it a couple of years back. I'm sure a bunch of injections there was uncomfortable, but surgery there would of been horrible. Two years out that pet is still doing well.
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