CANCER CARE
Complete Cancer Care by Southpaws brings together all of our capabilities to address cancer in cats and dogs. By combining advanced Chemotherapy, Radiation Therapy and Surgical Oncology – we deliver some of the most advanced cancer treatments available in Australia. We offer all these services in one location, greatly streamlining case management and ensuring continuity of care.
Complete Cancer Care by Southpaws is centered on world class oncology case management which takes into account diagnosis of cancer type and classification of the cancer stage through physical examination and a variety of imaging techniques (CT, Xray, Ultrasound). A prognosis is developed and a management goal is formulated – either curative or palliative treatment approaches are proposed. Surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy, pain relief and hormonal therapy are then considered.
CHEMOTHERAPY
Chemotherapy is effective in improving survival for many tumours for which surgery or radiation therapy are not appropriate. For dogs and cats these include lymphoma, haemangiosarcoma, osteosarcoma, mast cell tumours, multiple myeloma and some cases of melanoma and transitional cell carcinoma. Chemotherapy can be used either as an integrated treatment with surgery and radiation therapy, or as a standalone treatment, depending on anticipated outcomes. Modern chemotherapy alone provides increasingly improved outcomes in both dogs and cats.
Options include:
Southpaws’ in-house laboratory haematology capabilities are used to monitor patients under treatment. Our Idexx LaserCyte® haematology unit provides full, five part differential results within minutes. This provides accurate results critical to safe administration of chemotherapy and significantly shortens hospitalisation times and treatment sessions for your pet. We do on-site biochemical screening and collection and interpretation of cytology samples while patient histology samples and complex blood tests, are submitted to an external laboratory for interpretation by an expert pathologist. In the unlikely event of a chemotherapy complication, our technology allows close monitoring of patients during recovery.
DIAGNOSIS & IMAGING
Complete Cancer Care at Southpaws is founded on the most up to date diagnostic and imaging technology. Most of our imaging capabilities are the kind you would find in a human hospital. Our capabilities include :
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 skills and experience of our specialist surgeons – we have personally operated on more than 20,000 veterinary patients with cancer. Click here for more details on our expert staff. The key to success with surgical oncology is to minimise the chances of local recurrence. Our team achieve complete surgical margins in over 95% of tumours and we will discuss the statistical likelihood of recurrence during your free surgical consultation. In the unlikely event that complete surgical excision is not possible, radiation therapy is very effective for preventing tumour recurrence. Our surgeons have published widely on soft tissue sarcomas in dogs and in cats and our work has been key references for others studying veterinary cancer treatment.
