Canine Bone Cancer once deadly—now a Vaccine

“I’m afraid your dog has bone cancer,” my veterinarian told me back in 2001. “Amputation followed by chemotherapy is the best option. Most dogs, even with chemotherapy, survive only six to eight months.”

A death sentence.

Cancer is the main cause of death in dogs over two years of age. Bone cancer affects 10,000 dogs each year. Until recently, no new treatments were available.

Kaylee, my nine-year-old springer spaniel,  began limping two months prior to that diagnosis. Initially, the vet thought she had severe arthritis at the site of an old injury. Kaylee fell off a cliff when she was a puppy and broke her back leg. She had an internal plate stabilizing her back leg for years, which likely caused long-term inflammation of her bone that may have led to osteosarcoma many years later.

Osteosarcoma is a very painful bone cancer. Most pet owners discover it when their dog limps for a week or two and the dog does not get better. By the time my vet took x-rays, Kaylee did not put any weight on her back leg and only lay in her bed—miserably in pain. My vet wanted to amputate her leg. We balked at the idea, but when we saw an oncologist, he confirmed that she needed her leg amputated.

A few days after surgery, Kaylee was up and running—no longer in much pain. But nine months later, her back end became paralyzed from the middle of her spine. She could walk a bit with the aid of a wheelchair, but she could not sit or stand. She managed to live another year, but with a lot of treatment and care. We did not use chemotherapy since the prognosis at the time showed only a few more months of life.

Now there is hope—especially in the near future.

A study at the University Of Missouri College Of Veterinary Medicine is developing a vaccine using immunotherapy. This involves creating a vaccine from a dog’s own tumor.

 “The dogs received no chemotherapy and received only immunotherapy after their surgery. It’s the first time that dogs with osteosarcoma have experienced prolonged survival without receiving chemotherapy, which is really exciting,” said Jeffrey Bryan, a professor of oncology at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and director of the Comparative Oncology Radiobiology and Epigenetics Laboratory.

“Lymphocytes are immune cells that recognize where pathogens are hiding in the body and then kill the cells harboring those pathogens,” said Bryan. “After we remove the tumor, we create a vaccine using the dog’s tumor cells to stimulate anti-tumor lymphocytes. These lymphocytes are then collected by apheresis and expanded outside the body by Elias Animal Health to create a transfusion of the patient’s immune cells. These cells are activated and essentially really angry at whatever they are supposed to attack. When put back into the body, they should identify and destroy tumor cells. Ideally, this immune response would destroy every last tumor cell.”

Another study involves research on the therapeutic
agent rapamycin, which delays or prevents osteosarcoma from metastasizing. Rapamycin is commonly used as an immunosuppressant, but now also an anti-tumor agent. 

The clinical trial at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVM) will compare dogs receiving amputation and chemotherapy with dogs that also receive rapamycin.

Now there’s new hope for osteosarcoma patients. No cures have been found, but research is helping to prolong the dog’s life by double, triple, or even longer survival times.

If only Kaylee were still alive today…

To find out more about osteosarcoma research click on these links:

http://www.aaha.org/blog/NewStat/post/2019/02/07/592567/Breakthrough-bone-cancer-vaccine-for-dogs-could-help-humans-too.aspx

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/maf-maf041718.php

Have you known a dog with osteosarcoma? Please comment below: