Buddy - Soft Tissue Sarcoma

[Guest DundeeToddsMom]

We went to Animal Cancer & Imaging Center today with Buddy. The diagnosis is a soft tissue sarcoma on the back of this leg between his pads. It's approx 3cm x 3cm. It's inoperable because of the tendons and ligaments running to his toes. The Dr said this type normally doesn't spread anywhere else and if we have this taken care of Buddy will propably live out his normal life. He is 10 years old, will be 11 in January. We have two options.

 

Option 1: Do radiation. It would be 5 days a week for 3 weeks. Dr said the tumor would not reoccur on his foot. He would have a sunburn type skin irritation. He would have to be put under anesthia every day for 3 weeks. That's scary.

 

Option 2: Do nothing. The lump will continue to grow and then Buddy wouldn't be able to use his paw/foot and we would have to amputate. Dr didn't know how long - maybe 1 mth, maybe 6.

 

Any experience with this type of cancer?

 

My guy weighed 65 pounds. I'm afarid that the radiation might mess with his appetite - he doesn't really have any pounds to spare.

 

Help!!!

[Guest mcsheltie]

I don't have an experience with this kind of cancer. But I do with radiation in both cats and dogs. I would go that route. None of mine completely stopped eating. They did very well actually, much better than humans do.

 

The pain from the tumor, and later amputation, is also going to pull weight off too. I would want the cancer gone, ASAP. And I would want him to keep his leg.

 

You can start now adding extra calories and finding food he can't resist. And... even if he does loose a lot of weight, it will pass and he'll gain it back again after treatment.

 

The type of anesthesia used for this isn't the full-blown knock'em out kind they use for surgery. They used drugs to reverse the anesthesia and we could take them home soon after.

[Guest Fasave]

We went to Animal Cancer & Imaging Center today with Buddy. The diagnosis is a soft tissue sarcoma on the back of this leg between his pads. It's approx 3cm x 3cm. It's inoperable because of the tendons and ligaments running to his toes. The Dr said this type normally doesn't spread anywhere else and if we have this taken care of Buddy will propably live out his normal life. He is 10 years old, will be 11 in January. We have two options.

 

Option 1: Do radiation. It would be 5 days a week for 3 weeks. Dr said the tumor would not reoccur on his foot. He would have a sunburn type skin irritation. He would have to be put under anesthia every day for 3 weeks. That's scary.

 

Option 2: Do nothing. The lump will continue to grow and then Buddy wouldn't be able to use his paw/foot and we would have to amputate. Dr didn't know how long - maybe 1 mth, maybe 6.

 

Any experience with this type of cancer?

 

My guy weighed 65 pounds. I'm afarid that the radiation might mess with his appetite - he doesn't really have any pounds to spare.

 

Help!!!

 

Contact Dr. Couto at OSU. My guy has soft tissue sarcoma on the front of his leg. It was operated on a couple years ago and they got clean margins but not as large as they would have liked. They said I "could" do radiation if I wanted to be safe but he was technically cancer free and there was no guarantee that it would come back. Flash forward two years and I notice a couple small lumps, about the size of a grain of brown rice. I had it re-biopsied when my guy was under for other issues. Turns out, the cancer is back but it's a very low grade tumor and he will be 11 in a couple of months. They too recommended radiation. However, a friend of mine was going through the same thing with her grey two years ago and they didn't get clean margins. They recommended radiation but she contacted Dr. Couto who told her he hadn't done radiation for this type of cancer in 7 years. He told her about an injectible chemo drug that was given with sesame seed oil. No one in Boston would administer the treatment so she found a vet in RI. It was four shots, two weeks apart, little to no discomfort, about $800 (versus $5,000 for radiation). Only side effect was hair loss at the injection site. Her pup has been cancer free for over two years. I'm considering this treatment for my pup now. Not sure how this would work for you given the location of your pups cancer but it's worth consulting with OSU.

 

I'll be keeping good thoughts for you and your pup.

[Sambuca]

My dad recently died of soft tissue sarcoma at 63 y/o. That being said, I would personally treat aggressively. I would probably amputate now, to hopefully prevent it from metastasizing. Otherwise, I would just keep him comfortable until it's his time. Neither radiation or chemo worked for my father. That isn't to say that it doesn't work on everyone.

[EllenEveBaz]

No experience, just sending good thoughts and healing ear scritches.

[tbhounds]

Sounds like it's a fibrosarcoma or the likes. They are nasty and can grow quickly but, yes they don't usually met. I think if money is not a problem I would do the radiation--you will be surprised how well it will go. The other option would be amputation and if that's the case I would run him to OSU for the surgery or at the very least have your surgeon follow Dr Couto's protocol. Sorry you are faced with this but, at least you have options.

Edited to add hugs to Buddy

Edited September 29, 2010 by tbhounds

[Guest DundeeToddsMom]

Thank you for your responses. I've just sent an email to Dr Couto @ OSU to see if they might be able to help. I'll let you know.

[joejoesmom]

Thank you for your responses. I've just sent an email to Dr Couto @ OSU to see if they might be able to help. I'll let you know.

Just FYI, Dr. Couto is out of the country until October 5. He is the one who is most knowledgable on the treatment mentioned but perhaps someone on his team can provide some answers.

 

The treatment they are talking about is a chemo drug called 5FU. It is injected directly into the site of the tumor. It is very thin so if injected alone it will drain from the site very quickly. So they use a combining syringe and combine the 5FU with an oil (it becomes kind of like whipped cream) as it is injected. This allows the chemo drug to stay in the tumor area for hours instead of minutes.

 

The optimal situation is for the gross tumor to be removed (i.e. any visible tumor removed even if there are not clean margins). They will do treatments every 2 weeks for usually 4 treatments. The dog is sedated (usually propofol) during the injection as it will cause a burning sensation. There are very few side effects and all of them are localized to the site.

 

Since it sounds like none of the existing tumor can be removed (might want to double check with OSU surgeons for a second opinion on this), be sure to check the survival rates versus amputation.

 

I just had someone come to OSU with a greyhound who has spindle cell carcinoma. The mass had previously been removed twice before but had come back yet again. She opted to remove as much of the mass as possible and proceed with the 5FU. The prognosis is 90 percent chance the dog will be cancer free in 3 years. The prognosis was the same if she followed surgery with either the 5FU or the radiation. The prognosis would not have been as good if they couldn't remove the gross tumor.

 

The 5FU treatment has not been published anywhere. This is why some oncologists will not do it. Dr. Couto has had great success. He has used this treatment on about 50 dogs (15 of them greyhounds) and has had reoccurance (over the dogs entire life) in just 2 cases, neither of them greyhounds. He has also sent this protocol out to be used in over 30 other greyhounds. So for his small sample, he has a 96 percent success rate.

 

This treatment had been used successfully in horses for some time. It was first used in canines about 15-20 years ago but no official studies have been done.

 

Hope this info helps,

 

Jane