| Today, I finally heard back from my vet. He had checked with Kansas State Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Manhattan, Kansas to see what clinical trials, etc were available. He said they had a clinical trial for an anti-inflammatory drug called piroxicam , which is known to have some ability to suppress some cancer growth. The clinical trial involved having Syd go ahead with amputation, then begin chemo with doxorubicin (adriamycin) for a total of 5 treatments. He suggested I take Syd to K-State to consult with the oncologists there to see what my treatment options are. Because x-rays alone cannot rule out other scenarios (such as bone infection, or other forms of cancer,etc), a biopsy procedure is one of the normal methods of determinig OS. A biopsy entails a large needle with a scoop on the end being stuck in the site of the tumor and small samples removed for analysis to determine what the tumor consists of. (See a great website that explains this and much more at Canine Osteosarcoma). Bone biopsies are extremely painful and your dog may be more lame that it was prior to the procedure. Some biopsies can also come out inconclusive as well. Most people tend to prefer doing biopsies before amputation because they want to know before they go to that extreme measure of amputating. Also, another factor in being able to do the clinical trial and chemo is that Syd's lungs had to be free of metastisis (metastisis is where the cancer has spread from the primary tumor to the lungs). I made an appointment for my consultation at K-State for August 12, 2003. |
