Cancer Care at South Paws
Hearing that a pet has cancer can be one of the most distressing events that can occur in a pet owner’s life.
The days of “keeping the pet comfortable and letting nature take its course” are long gone. With swift and decisive action, a cure can be achieved in many patients. Many others have a significantly prolonged life with marked improvement in clinical signs.
Surgical Oncology
Surgery is the most effective method for treatment of cancer in animals and humans. The success of cancer surgery is highly dependent on the skill and experience of the surgeon. Southpaws director, Charles Kuntz, is one of 20 people world-wide to have completed a fellowship in surgical oncology and one of only four in Australia. He has personally operated on more than 5,000 veterinary patients with cancer. Local recurrence often plagues people who attempt to remove tumours. Charles achieves complete surgical margins in over 95% of tumours and he can virtually guarantee local tumour control with most tumours.
In the unlikely event that complete surgical excision is not possible, Southpaws has one of only two radiation therapy units for animals in Australia. Radiation therapy is very effective for preventing tumour recurrence following incomplete cancer surgery. Charles has published the largest collections of soft tissue sarcomas in dogs and in cats and his studies have been landmarks for others studying cancer treatment. His oncology service is supported by the newest and fastest CT scanner for animals in use in Australia. The fact that all three cancer treatment modalities are directed by the same clinician means that every patient will receive the most appropriate care which, is not skewed by personal bias.
Radiotherapy
Southpaws is proud to house the only radiation therapy unit for animals in Victoria and was the first deep-therapy radiation unit for animals in Australia. The radiation therapy equipment delivers a concentrated radiation beam driven by up to three hundred thousand volts. This allows deep penetration of the beam to treat a wide range of tumours in all parts of the body. Many tumours not appropriate for either surgery or chemotherapy can be treated either curatively or with palliative doses to improve quality of life.
Radiotherapy is a perfect partner to both surgery and chemotherapeutic treatment of many tumours and can be used in concert with these techniques to meaningfully improve case outcomes.
Curative treatments typically take somewhere between two to three weeks with daily treatments. A number of small doses are delivered to minimise side effects while maximising the destruction of cancerous cells, which recover more slowly from the radiation insult.
During this time pets visit the Centre each week day to receive treatment. All pets undergo light anaethesia during treatment and can be picked up later the same day. Boarding is available for pets whose owners have traveled long distances.
Palliative treatments are delivered over fewer treatment sessions and are very effective at improving quality of life by reducing growth or size of the primary tumour site.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is effective for improving survival in many tumours for which surgery or radiation therapy are not appropriate. These include a large number of cancers found in both dogs and cats, including lymphoma, haemangiosarcoma, osteosarcoma, mast cell tumours, multiple myeloma and some cases of melanoma and transitional cell carcinoma.
Your vet can refer you for chemotherapy either as an integrated treatment with surgery and radiation therapy, or as a standalone treatment, depending on which approach will provide the best anticipated outcome.
In addition to the ability to provide chemotherapy, a comprehensive and accurate haematology capability is also required to monitor patients under treatment. The Centre houses an Idexx LaserCyte® haematology unit which provides full five part differential results within minutes. This technology is the same as that found in dedicated laboratories which service the veterinary industry in Melbourne and greater Victoria. This not only provides accurate results critical to safe administration of chemotherapy, but also significantly shortens hospitalisation times and treatment sessions for your pet. In the unlikely event of a chemotherapy complication, this technology allows close monitoring of patients during recovery.
Even for conditions for which surgery and radiotherapy are not indicated, chemotherapy alone is providing increasingly improved outcomes in both dogs and cats.
