What is Remission from Cancer?

People often ask me how I know if Lucy is in remission.

Here is one definition:

"Complete remission means that there are no symptoms and no clinical signs that can be identified to indicate the presence of cancer. However, even when a person is in remission, there may be microscopic collections of cancer cells that cannot be identified by current techniques. This means that even if a person is in remission, they may, at some future time, experience a recurrence of their cancer."

There is also partial remission. This usually means some mild chronic symptoms my still occur, but symptoms are better than they were quite a bit, and disease does not appear to be progressing.

My definition: Lucy no longer has symptoms and no clinical signs that can be readlily identified to indicate the presence of nasal cancer at this time the entry was dated. Remission occured appx 22 months ago.

CyberKnife Radiosurgery SRS for Dog Cancers

CyberKnife Radiosurgery for Dog Cancers

CyberKnife Radiosurgery, or SRS, can conform to the tumor: a radiologist can program its beams to closely follows the edges of the tumor, making it very accurate and much less likely to damage healthy tissue in the area around the tumor. It has multiple radiation beams, and the robotic arm that holds the machine can position it in many more treatment angles. This combination of more beams and more positions means it treats with millimeter to sub-millimeter accuracy. This is why less normal tissue is radiated, a higher dose of radiation is delivered to the tumor, and fewer treatments (1 or 3 total) are needed. Fewer treatments means fewer trips to the hospital (conventional radiation treatments require fifteen to twenty sessions!) and much lower risks from the required anesthesia that is done each time.

Conventional radiation therapy treatments usually require fifteen to twenty treatments, which are also called fractions. Each session requires a short anesthesia, and pets are usually treated daily Monday to Friday with the weekends off. That’s a lot of anesthesia...

CyberKnife RadioSurgery can be used INSTEAD of surgery or traditional radiation, when traditional surgery with a scalpel blade is impossible or would cause unacceptable side effects to the patient, or when surgery is refused (like an amputation for bone osteosarcoma). CyberKnife can also be used if conventional radiation has failed.

Based on my research, CyberKnife RadioSurgery, or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) would be the conventional treatment of choice for brain tumors and nasal tumors. The precision involved in CyberKnife radiosurgery is amazing, and you can treat your dog in 1 or 3 treatments (done on consecutive days). That means five times less anesthesia, five times fewer trips to the hospital, and fewer side effects. But the results are still comparable to traditional radiation therapy.  

Radiation therapy is used to damage the DNA in tumor cells resulting in the death of the tumor cells. It is a pain-free, non-surgical option capable of targeting most areas of the body. Fewer treatments are necessary which means less stress for your pet. An added bonus is that your pet has to be anesthetized fewer times. Each treatment lasts between 30-90 minutes. Additional treatments (usually no more than 5) are administered over a period of several days. Side effects are minimal and usually disappear after 1-2 weeks.

Before undergoing cyberknife treatment, your pet will undergo a CT scan, MRI or PET scan to determine the size, shape and location of the tumor. Then a software technician, using this information, will create a treatment plan for the cyberknife. Your pet will be placed on a table, comfortably positioned. The computer controlled robot will slowly move around the patient where it will deliver radiation to the tumor location.

There are many facilities offering cyberknife treatment for humans, but at present, we are aware of only 3 facilities for pets. The Cyberknife Therapy - Animal Specialty Center in Yonkers, New York was the first to treat pets in the world. Cyberknife treatment is also available for pets at the Colorado State University Animal Cancer Center and through California Veterinary Specialists.

Costs. Unfortunately CyberKnife (CK) is still expensive. For example in S. California., just the CyberKnife procedure is was quoted at $12,500 dollars and that does not include chemo, bone scans, ct scans, and all the rest of the stuff that goes in to it. Even in NY I was quoted about minimum $8000 for the CK including the CT scan). These are similar costs compared to regular radiation.

While well-established in human oncology, this type of radiation therapy is so new in veterinary medicine that few veterinary scientific papers exist, but thanks to pioneering cooperative efforts between veterinarians and human oncology centers, it is becoming available in a few locations in the United States. According to a radiation oncologist, Dr. Jarred Lyons, "stereotactic radiosurgery is best suited for cases with a tumor in a location where surgery is not feasible or where the owner does not want to do surgery. Brain tumors, spinal tumors, nasal tumors, bone tumors like osteosarcoma, prostatic tumors, and lung tumors not amenable to surgery are all candidates. Because this type of radiosurgery can deliver very precise and very high doses of radiation, usually patients require fewer treatments (usually one to three treatments as opposed to 16-22 for normal conventional radiation therapy). That means far fewer anesthetic events are needed and side effects are usually minimal."

But I find these stories also...

Roxy

http://roxycyberknifebraintumor.blogspot.com/ got 6 months. sad.

Max the dog & a Cyberknife
http://maxck.blogspot.com/ old dog lots of problems but alive still

Adventure of Jake the Superdoggy

http://jakecyberknifedog.blogspot.com/2012_07_01_archive.html got 9 months. sad.

Jake the Warrior (another Jake) regular surgery plus experimental gene therapy.  got 4 months. sad.