deemery

Anyone have experience with cancers, particularly nerve sheaf cancers? Our dog has had 2 nerve sheaf tumors near her hip. Both were removed (May and Sept), and now she's on low dose ("metronome") chemo (a pill a day, I have to wear gloves to wrap it in the "pill pocket". Plus she gets an anti-inflammatory and something to prevent upset stomach.) So far after 10 days (knock on wood) she's showing no side effects from the chemo. Both our regular vet and the oncologist are cautiously optimistic, if they got it all in surgery the prognosis is pretty good. The chemo is as a precaution since the initial surgery might not have been aggressive enough.

dave

Lea

Hi there. No experience with canine cancer but I wish you all the best of luck with your fur baby's recovery.

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Oodles of Poodle curls!!!!

N2Mischief

From what I understand, dogs usually don't get the severe side effects like humans do. The only time I have had experience with chemo has been with osteosarcoma in a rottweiler. I guess with bone cancer it is not very effective, but with other cancers it can work much better. I wish you much luck and hope your poodle makes a quick recovery!

Samba

double post

Samba

Oral chemo (CCNU in particular), is generally easily tolerated by dogs. The injectable ones are the ones that have a greater chance of cauing probems...but with saying that, dogs certainly dont have the same symptoms that people do.

We treat a lot of pets with chemo, 80% have no side effects, some have mild Gi side effects (responsive to cerenia), and a handful get horrible GI upset that we do not continue chemo.

We have 2 spoo's in for chemo right now, both are doing well and love coming in for their injections and treats!

Luckily with nerve sheath tumors, they are often excisable and with good margins hopefully the chance of metastasis is low.

deemery

And doing fine... She had her first follow-up earlier this week, everything's normal. She does seem to be grooming her paws more than before, and for that and an itchy spot on her belly we started zyrtec 5mg (1/2 of 10mg pill)

The vet oncologist did tell us that, particularly with injection chemo, some poodles have been known to lose their hair. A bald poodle would be a sorry sight...

Samba

None of the poodles we have treated have lost hair, the amount of regrowth on their legs from the catheter placement was crazy...like they were never shaved! We notice it more on cats, that their guard hairs come out. Leaves them so soft and bunny like. Its strange that even the hair vs. fur breeds dont loose their coat much. Sometimes they thin slightly, but of 1000+ chemo patients I have worked with, none of them went bald

Glad to hear your pup is doing well. Cytoxan is one we use frequently and other than very mild GI upset you probably wont even know your kid is being treated with chemo. Please do be careful when cleaning up after him, make sure you double glove/bag.

deemery

Jersey was on Cytoxan, but this appears to have irritated her bladder (known side effect, the vet said.) At first we thought it was a urinary tract infection, but after a week on antibiotics nothing changed. She had on really bad day (Christmas Eve) but once we took her off Cytoxan, she's bounced back. Se still has the bladder irritation symptoms, but her energy level, appetite, etc, are all good. We'll start her on a different low dose chemo next week.

Her symptoms included frequent urination, both the need to go out (we had some accidents when she didn't get out in time) and once she's out, she'd squat multiple times on her walk. There was an occasional drop of blood at the end, too, but the Vet said that's typical.