Cancer Treatment
For Your Pet
Pain relief, recovery and a better quality of life
Your pet deserves the best cancer care
You received the news you didn’t want to hear — your pet has cancer. And all you want to do is fix this or provide the best level of palliative care possible. It’s devastating news, we know. Yet there ARE things that you can do and fortunately, we have the latest cancer treatment technology, techniques and care to help.
We will work with you to determine the best course of cancer treatment and care for your pet. Our trained staff understand know all too well how difficult this news is and we’re here to offer you counselling and guidance on the best course of cancer treatment possible for your pet’s situation. And yours.
We will work with you to determine the best course of cancer treatment and care for your pet. Our trained staff understand know all too well how difficult this news is and we’re here to offer you counselling and guidance on the best course of cancer treatment possible for your pet’s situation. And yours.
Relatively new to veterinary medicine, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has long been an accepted cancer treatment for humans. The term “surgery” is a misnomer; it refers to targeting cancer tumours with radiotherapy and is non invasive. The benefits of this procedure are reduced hospital time and reduced need for anaesthesia compared to traditional RT. One course of SRS comprises 1 - 3 treatments.
Immunotherapy uses your pet’s immune system to fight cancer. Malignant melanoma is a common cancer in dogs that immunotherapy treats. A malignant melanoma vaccine injection is administered every other week in four vaccination treatments, followed every six months by booster shots.
Surgery may be the best treatment for your pet’s form and stage of cancer. A surgical plan will be presented to you that covers the surgical goals and related treatment options for improving the quality of life for your pet.
If appropriate, we will share information with you about clinical trials that may be appropriate for your pet’s cancer treatment.
The dreaded term - chemotherapy - can actually save your pet's life by targeting rapidly growing cancer cells and killing them. It’s a highly effective treatment for certain types of cancer. Chemotherapy can be used for several goals such as remission, or stopping metastasis - the spread of cancer. Your pet’s chemotherapy plan may call for injectable or oral chemotherapy to be administered. Since it’s such a dreaded word when humans hear it, you may be encouraged to know that pets seem to tolerate it much better than we humans, with fewer side effects.
Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a combination of electroporation and chemotherapy that increases pores in cell membranes enabling chemotherapy to penetrate the tumour cell more readily to fight cancer growth. Pets have light anaesthesia for their treatment which is administered to them as outpatients.
Cryotherapy is used to remove certain forms of skin cancer, such as squamous cell carcinomas. Liquid nitrogen is used to freeze and destroy cancer cells.
Radiation therapy is a high-focus treatment that employs high-energy radiation to kill cancerous cells in pets. Normally a CT scan is the first step to create a two-dimensional image that defines the cancerous field for treatment, limiting extraneous exposure to non-cancerous tissue.
Donner Truckee Veterinary Hospital and its staff are here for you and your pet during this unsettling time with a full range of cancer treatments and help for the best quality of life for your pet.
