Caninecancer.org.au

Hi I'm new to this forum but hoping someone can provide me with information. I have a 12.5 year old mixed breed boy who was very recently diagnosed with terminal MCT with lymph node involvement (2 nodes - please note that he did not have surgery to remove any of the cancer per my Onc rec). Currently he is asymptomatic. He's had 2 doses of vinblastine but despite this, the tumor has grown. Just today we switched to CCNU. Talked with my Oncologist about options beyond this current CCNU treatment as his prognosis now is less than the original 6-12 months. We talked about Palladia and Kinavet (which I know is not available in Australia) but I also gave her info on Kvax. She's had not heard of this before so I'm wondering if you have any good information from experience? How long does the process take? I know it says allow 3-5 weeks to determine if it's going to work but how long is needed to process your dog's tumor and produce the vaccine (not sure if that's the right term?). Have you had any success with dogs that with this dire of a prognosis? Is it something you could start the process (ie take the tumor biopsy to get your vaccine produced) and use at a later time or does it need to be administered right away? Can it be used in conjunction with other treatments? Any information, anecdotal even, is MUCH appreciated. I just don't feel like we have a lot of time to waste on one treatment and then the next and so on. If this is something I could get moving sooner than later I would very much like to do so but I could tell she was hesitant given she didn't know anything about it. Thank you so much and I look forward to your reply!

Michele and Tanner

Hi Michele

You mention you are using an oncologist. If you can email me who it is I have just found some info sent to me that may be of some use to them. I will email it to them direct. I think it is important that dog owners let the oncologists decide if they think something is worthy of trying based on the particular case they are treating. They have the expertise to analyse the information they are given. I am merely a dog owner with no medical training

info@caninecancer.org.au

Lisa

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1. Sending tumours to the lab saves lives
2. Pet insurance allows you to give your dog the best treatments available
3. Using an oncologist gives your dog the best chance of survival.

The vaccine arena is an exciting one, and there are frequent refinements. As yet though there is no proven, reliably effective and reliably safe way of harnessing the immune system for most tumours. The delay on the KVax is a problem. I have not used it partly because of there being no evidence of benefit, high cost, the need for collection of fresh tissue to make the vaccine (biopsy) and the delay.

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Dr Ken Wyatt BSc BVMS FANZCVS
Specialist Veterinary Oncologist
Perth Veterinary Oncology