OSTEOSARCOMA (BONE CANCER)

OSTEOSARCOMA (BONE CANCER)
Lucky was not so fortunate recently. Lucky is a Rottweiler mix, about 9 years old, and started
limping on her left rear leg in early March. At a specialist hospital, a bone biopsy revealed the
dreaded diagnosis of osteosarcoma (bone cancer)
Lucky’s owners elected to come to Maumee Valley Veterinary Clinic to pursue options:
These included: 1. Do nothing except try to manage with pain medication.
2. Amputate the limb to try to buy some time
3. Chemotherapy with amputation
The owners aggressively sought out any trials at universities and found that Ohio State had a
trial for this particular cancer. They required that the leg be amputated at the hip, since
osteosarcoma is so aggressive. They also required that a chest xray be done first to be sure it
had not already spread.
The xray and blood tests checking for anemia and liver, kidney, pancreas baselines were all
normal, so surgery was a go.
Please also view the video to see how well Lucky maneuvers on three legs. This was taken at the
time of her first chemo injection.
Amputation was performed without complications. The spaces left came together, so it was
decided not to install a drain. However within 3 days, it became apparent that a drain was
needed due to seroma swelling and was installed under local lidocaine. We had a window of 14
days before chemo would be started within the trial, but at the 14th day, there still was some
drainage. OSU did a culture and a fecal contaminant was found (from the open drain, which
always poses a problem and the reason it was originally tried to bypass putting a drain in). With
rigorous lavage, cleaning and trying a different antibiotic, the incision quickly healed and the
chemotherapy process was begun
.
Please also view the video to see how well Lucky maneuvers on three legs. This was taken at the
time of her 2nd chemo injection. The first chemo was done at the university after a CBC, renal
panel and a vomiting drug were given. A week later a normal CBC was obtained.
The following pictures show her at the 2nd chemotherapy 3 weeks later after a normal CBC and
renal panel was obtained. A catheter had to be installed to be sure that no drug got outside of
the vein.
Lucky did very well. Three weeks later, a CBC was done to be sure that the chemo did not drop
the white blood cell count too much. The blood panel checking the kidneys and a chest xray also
showed everything was fine. The 3rd chemotherapy was done at the university.
Currently we are waiting to do the 4th chemotherapy at the local clinic here if the blood tests
come back normal. Lucky is doing very well and has had very little side effects thus far, since
an anti-vomiting injection is given at each chemo treatment. If nausea or vomiting occurs, then
appropriate medicines can be given at home. So far though, this has not been a major problem.
Osteosarcoma often spreads microscopically very early in the disease. Many dogs have
microscopic spread by the time of the original diagnosis. Diagnosis is usually made after normal
pain medicines do not stop a limping problem in a dog and then an xray is taken.
Standard treatment is to amputate the affected limb, and then give chemotherapy iv every 3
weeks for 4-6 treatments. The median survival rate (half are below this and half are longer) is
10-12 months, with about 20% of dogs surviving over 2 years! Without surgery and chemo, most
dogs will succumb to the cancer within 2-4 months.
Stay tuned for updates on Lucky!