IMMUNOTHERAPY IN ONCOLOGY

Regarding to cancer treatments currently available for animals, unfortunately, palliative care is still too often offered to increase the quality of life of patients. And because of the rapid evolution of this multifactorial disease, hospitalization is often necessary.

However, the fight against cancer in veterinary medicine is becoming a priority. Clinical trials to help fight cancer are increasingly concerning animals, and veterinary oncologists are involved in this global clinical research. Advances in treatment efficacy have been significant over the last decade, with access to more different therapies. These therapies now make it possible to achieve a remission and sometimes a cure of diseased animals, while limiting side effects. Indeed, these treatments target more and more specifically the cells of the tumor, thus increasing their effectiveness.

The cooperation between the veterinarian, the owner of the animal and the animal itself increases the success rate of these treatments. Veterinary practitioners who train in oncology are increasingly numerous.

Prevention, awareness-raising and early detection of cancer remain necessary to avoid an increase in the number of sick animals. As in human medicine, risk factors have been discovered in animals: obesity, lack of physical activity, pollution …

And just as in human medicine, in veterinary cancer, we can also find cancers like melanomas or head and neck tumors.

Veterinarians for pets train in oncology and mobilize to ensure better management of cancers. The benefits of the wide range of therapies against cancers increase the longevity of our animals.

The diagnosis of cancer often follows clinical examinations:

• medical imaging such as radiography, ultrasound, scanner
• laboratory analysis.

Once the cancer diagnosis is established, you can validate a treatment protocol with your veterinarian. For your dog and your cat, the vet can, for example, program a surgery under general anesthesia.

Veterinary clinics, veterinary hospital centers and national veterinary schools can also receive your pet urgently and admit it in intensive care if its condition requires it.

URODELIA’s personalized immunotherapy is indicated in the treatment of many different tumor types.

Here is Vanilla, a nice Labrador dog of sand color. She is 9 years old. Its owner noted the appearance of a mass on the skin. It is located on her fingers, on the right front leg. This mass annoys her to walk and she licks a lot.

Her veterinarian decides to perform a fine needle aspiration and the diagnosis falls: it is a cancer. To specify this diagnosis, surgery is performed and allows sending a biopsy for histological analysis to the laboratory. Vanilla mass is a grade II mast cell tumor. This locally invasive tumor has a high metastatic potential, ie other tumors can appear on Vanilla. For stage II, 20% of the tumors metastasize (source: Biller, B., Berg, J., Garrett, L., Ruslander, D., Wearing, R., Abbott, B., … Bryan, C. (2016). 2016 AAHA Oncology Guidelines for Dogs and Cats*. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association, (June), JAAHA-MS-6570. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27259020)

The owner of Vanilla preferred to choose to avoid chemotherapy (due to the presence of children in the household). However, in order to ensure a complementary treatment to its dog, the URODELIA’s immuno-oncology treatment was put in place.

This treatment was prepared specifically for Vanilla by her vet. It was composed of 8 mono doses that were subcutaneously injected to Vanilla once a week during the first 4 weeks and then once a month. From the 4th injection, the size of the mass decreased. Vanilla has no side effects, but she is sometimes very tired.

It is now 2 years that Vanilla is followed regularly by her veterinarian, and no recurrence or metastasis appeared thanks to the anti-cancer treatment.