First Bone Marrow Transplant In Dog With Lymphoma

Veterinary Specialty Hospital Success With Its First Bone Marrow Transplant In Dog With Lymphoma

Veterinary Specialty Hospital of San Diego (VSH) has successfully performed a hematopoietic cell transplant (better known as bone marrow transplant) for a dog with lymphoma. Cody, an otherwise active and healthy 7-year old male Golden Retriever completed his treatment and is thriving with no complications 4 months after his discharge from the hospital.

Chemotherapy is the current treatment for dogs diagnosed with this type of cancer, but most patients succumb to this disease in less than 18 months even with therapy. For the past two decades, there has been little change in this prognosis.

Bone marrow cell transplant therapy is a treatment option for humans diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma and is a method that improves survival for many patients diagnosed with these diseases. This success is the motivating factor in development of a bone marrow transplant protocol to improve treatment outcome for dogs diagnosed with canine lymphoma.

According to Brenda Phillips, DVM, ACVIM (Oncology) and head of the transplant team, "as one of only 4 transplant centers in the United States, we are excited to offer this therapy as a potential cure for dogs diagnosed with the devastating disease of canine lymphoma."

For the past decade several dozen dogs with lymphoma have been treated with bone marrow transplant therapy. The protocols for bone marrow transplant have evolved to provide a well-tolerated treatment approach for our canine lymphoma patients.

While the cost of hematopoietic cell therapy is moderately high, it is close to the cost of traditional induction chemotherapy followed by several rescue therapy protocols, typically necessary for most canine lymphoma patients to achieve greater than a one-year survival.

Source:
Veterinary Specialty Hospital