RE: Deals30 Jan 2025 12:29
Touk, looks like in the USA the veterinary schools have a role:
(incidentally, I once read that vets just hold the cancer in check with pets so lower doses for longer, to avoid side effects and knowing the pets have shorter lives anyway.)
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/comparative-oncology-dogs-cancer-clinical-trials
Helping Dogs—and Humans—with Cancer: NCI’s Comparative Oncology Studies
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July 10, 2019, by NCI Staff
Physician and nurse examining a dog.
A physician and assistant at the University of Minnesota examine a dog patient.
Credit: University of Minnesota
Dogs are, no doubt, man’s best friend. So, it’s no surprise that people will do almost anything for their dogs. But what can a person do if their dog is given a devastating diagnosis of cancer?
One option is to enroll the pet in an NCI-supported clinical trial testing a new cancer treatment. The goal of these trials, offered by veterinary medical schools around the country, is to find new treatments that preserve dogs’ quality of life and maximize their time with their families.
“These [dogs] are not lab animals, they are our patients,” said Toby Hecht, Ph.D., deputy director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, who oversees some of the canine studies.
The trials have another benefit that pet owners may not expect: Providing insight into how the treatments and approaches being studied in dogs may be translated to help people with cancer.
That’s because the biology of humans and dogs, as well as the tumors that grow in each species, are similar in many ways. What’s more, cancer treatments that are safe and effective in dogs often work well in people, too.
Since 2003, NCI has been using information from studies of canine cancer to help guide studies of human cancer and vice versa—a field known as comparative oncology. Two NCI efforts, the Comparative Oncology Program (COP) and the Pre-medical Cancer Immunotherapy Network for Canine Trials (PRECINCT), facilitate trials of new therapies for different types of cancer in pet dogs, as well as laboratory studies to learn more about the basics of canine cancer.
“Pet dogs benefit from what we do because we learn about their cancer and that can ultimately help identify better treatments for them,” said Amy LeBlanc, D.V.M., director of the Comparative Oncology Program in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. “We see the work that we do as an opportunity to help both dogs and people.”
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