High-tech hope for dogs with lymphoma


Posted on Sep 17, 2009
By Julia Szabo

The dog doctors at North Carolina State University's College of  Veterinary Medicine have done it again.  This pioneering center of animal medical research, where earlier this year Cassidy, America's first bionic dog was outfitted with a permanent artificial limb, now becomes the first in the nation to offer canine bone marrow transplants to dogs with lymphoma.

Dr. Steven Suter, assistant professor of oncology in NCSU's College of Veterinary Medicine, uses three leukophoresis machines in a treatment called peripheral blood cell stem transplantation.  Donated by the Mayo Clinic and originally used on human cancer patients, the machines harvest healthy, cancer-free stem cells from cancer patients' those cells are then reintroduced into the patient after total body radiation has killed residual cancer cells.

The machines did not require modification for use on dogs.  That's because bone marrow protocols for people were originally developed by treating canine subjects.  "It's not a new technology, it's just a new application of an existing technology," Dr. Suter explains.

And now, the technology has come full circle to help dogs combat cancer.  Sadly, canine lymphoma is one of the most common types of cancer in dogs, but the survival rate with current treatments is poor.  Administered in conjunction with chemotherapy, peripheral blood stem cell transplantation has raised human survival rates, and vets are hopeful that dog patients will show similarly positive results.

"We know that dogs who have received bone marrow transplants have a cure rate of at least 30 percent versus about 0 to 2 percent for dogs who don't receive the transplants," Suter says.  "The process itself is painless for dogs- the only thing they lost is a bit of body heat while the cells are being harvested."

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