January 30, 2009

The Animal Medical Center, in New York City, has just begun treating cancer patients on a new radiation machine that can target tumors more effectively and pointedly. (Photo Courtesy of the Animal Medical Center)

NEW YORK -- Animal cancer patients in the New York Tri-State area just received a new shot at effective treatment, with the Animal Medical Center's recent installment of a "state-of-the-art" linear accelerator, or LINAC.

The machine specifically targets tumors to an advanced degree, thus diminishing the effects radiation can have on surrounding, non-cancerous tissue or organs.

It's the only like one in the Tri-State area, veterinarians at the Upper East Side nonprofit facility say.

There's an explanation behind the machine's relative rarity -- it costs several hundred thousand dollars, but with months of installation required, the LINAC total comes to between $1 and $2 million, says John Farrelly, AVM, head of radiation oncology at the AMC.

Nonprofit veterinary facilities don't generally just happen upon that kind of cash.

"We've been raising money here for a number of years," Farrelly said. "We've been appealing to donors and trustees, which is how we were actually able to afford this."

The machine arrived in September, but it took months to install it and get everything up and going, Farrelly says. The LINAC formally debuted last week.

Vets see the machine as a new face to the field of canine cancer research and treatment.

"Radiation oncology has come a long way in the past few years," said staff neurologist Dr. Samantha Kegee. "The type of radiation that was available before was pretty effective, but much less exact and targeted in what it was trying to accomplish."

The new machine works in generally the same way that the AMC's old one does, but its advanced technology is likely to shrink tumors faster, better, and with fewer side effects.

When dogs with brain tumors undergo radiation, for example, their "overall cognitive function," can take an unnecessary hit, Kegee says.

"In the short term, it isn't uncommon to see dogs with dull mental status and lethargy," she said. "In the long term, what can happen is more of a structural change to the brain tissue, resulting in seizures and scarring of the brain tissue."

To lessen the blow of the radiation, veterinarians administer the treatment in 15 to 20 bouts over a period of time.

The majority of the patients recover "tremendously well," Kegee says, but some still suffer from side effects, nonetheless.

"It's important to offer radiation treatment to our patients here," Farrelly said. "This [new] machine has a lot more capability in terms of what it can do, and is also added to what most of our competitors can do. It is probably going to change the results we get for brain tumors, and will also allow us to focus the radiation very tightly."

Effective, extensive animal cancer treatment is often hard to find, but is usually located at large, veterinary schools linked to public universities, like the facilities at Colorado State University and the University of Minnesota.

A private veterinary hospital that offers such treatment is few and far between, says Gary Nice, founder of the National Canine Cancer Foundation.

"Most of the advanced treatment will be found at the big veterinarian colleges," he said. "It's very cool that a private vet hospital has this. It's very good work on their behalf."

Locating a facility to help pets diagnosed with cancer is just the start of an uphill battle -- a full treatment can run the gamut of $6,000 to $8,000, Farrelly says. Nice approximates it can reach up to $11,000 at other facilities.

Despite the treatment's cost, pet owners have traveled from as far as Japan to reach the AMC, even when it only had the "simpler" machine, Farrelly said.

"People have come from all over the country," he said, adding that people's willingness to shell out thousands in name of their pet's health does not surprise him.

"You get used to seeing people whose pets are their family. Costs are an issue, of course, but people have a real love for their animals and they want to try to do whatever is possible to help them."

Much like the case with human forms of cancer, there is no cure to the canine or feline variety. Treatments may help, but cannot entirely eliminate the possibility of a relapse, or even initial eradication of the cancerous cells.

Older dogs are predisposed to cancer, Farrelly says, as well as particular breeds, like Golden Retrievers, Boxers and Bernese Mountain dogs.

Veterinarians will try to take an animal's age into account when considering if cancer treatment would be worthwhile, but the real question, Farrelly says, is "how healthy the pet is, overall, not its age."

For some pet owners, it doesn't matter if radiation treatment would grant their animals a few extra years, or even months.

Nice has lost three dogs to cancer in a two-year span. His last dog's cancer progressed at a rapid rate, leaving him dead within 30 days of diagnosis. If the veterinarian had promised that radiation would grant the dog just six more months, Nice says, he "would have done it.

"In a heartbeat," he continued. "I would have done anything to help him."

Resources to combat canine cancer, however, remain limited. Nice approximates that there are around 100 certified veterinary oncologists in the country.

Funding is another paramount issue: Only $5 million is spent on canine cancer research a year, Nice says, contrasted with the $500 million that goes toward human cancer research.

The space between the fields of research, though, is not as big as the numbers would imply. In 2004, the National Institute of Health, a medical research agency powered through the U.S. Health and Human Services, set aside $32 million to map the genome of the dog.

"They believe that the cure for cancer in humans is going to come through research for cancer in dogs," Nice said. "In a sense, the study [of canine cancer] is ahead in that way, since we want to use our research to find a cure for human cancer, as well."

In many other forms, though, the field of canine cancer research is lagging behind that of humans, just waiting for a breakthrough that could prevent countless deaths each year.

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