Cancer treatment is available for pets

I think, most of the time, the scariest diagnosis a human patient can hear is that they have cancer.

Pet owners often face the same anxiety with their pets.

Veterinary practices are diagnosing more cancer than ever in pets, mostly due to better diagnostic tools and greater awareness. Luckily, we are now better able to treat cancer in veterinary patients.

There are many treatment options available for veterinary cancer patients. The three most common (in order of frequency of use) are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Most veterinary practices are equipped to remove simple masses in the body surface (lumps and bumps) and many are comfortable with more involved procedures (limb amputation and organ removal).

Many of the cancers treated by veterinarians involve the removal of tumors and having them sent to a pathologist for evaluation. Knowing what type of cancer you are dealing with affects the types of treatment options that are available.

Some general practitioners are able to offer a high level of care to cancer patients, even including chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy can be dangerous to administer and store, so many practices do not offer this service "in house."

Those who do chemotherapy locally usually have a doctor on staff with an interest in oncology who has learned about the proper handling of chemotherapeutic drugs and the patients that receive them.

Recently, Pfizer received FDA approval for the first veterinary specific chemotherapeutic drug. It currently is only labeled to treat specific type of cancer, but work is being done to determine whether it has wider applications.

Radiation therapy is not as widely used to treat cancer in pets. This is largely due to the need for very specialized equipment and facilities. That said, radiation can be very valuable in the fight against cancer.

Most areas of the U.S. have an available radiation center for animals within a short trip for the owner.

As medicine advances, newer cancer treatment modalities are becoming more common. Immunotherapy and gene therapy are among the newer methodologies being employed.

Today, your pet's doctor is much better equipped to diagnose and treat cancer; hopefully, giving you options for treatment once thought impossible for pets.

Dr. Michael Dill is a veterinarian at Bienville Animal Medical Center in Ocean Springs, Miss.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.