Bone Cancer Risk Extremely High for Certain Breeds

Larger dogs (and those with longer noses) more likely to succumb.

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The risk for bone cancer is at least ten times higher for large breeds like Rottweilers, Great Danes, and Rhodesian ridgebacks than for mixed breeds. Researchers made the finding when combing through the medical records of more than 900,000 dogs. At the same time, they found, the risk is particularly low for a number of smaller breeds, including the Jack Russell terrier, Bichon frise, and cavalier King Charles spaniel.

Body conformation appears to play a role along with size, according to the findings, reported in the journal Canine Medicine and Genetics. Dogs with longer legs and longer skull shapes (and noses) were at higher risk for bone tumors than dogs with shorter skulls (and noses). Long-skulled dogs are called dolichocephalic breeds (they tend to have long, pointy noses), while those with short skulls are brachyce-phalic (with short noses, such as bulldogs).

The research team, hailing from the UK’s Bristol Veterinary School and Cardiff University, is currently developing a project that will sequence certain genes in at-risk and protected breeds for bone cancer, known medically as osteosarcoma. The aim is to identify those genetic pathways that cause bone tumors to develop from normal bone. Identifying such pathways will allow new drugs, or older, repurposed drugs, to be used to see if the outcomes can be improved when treating canine bone tumors.

New treatment breakthroughs can’t come soon enough. Bone cancer is a particularly painful type of malignancy. It starts in the limbs in dogs and tends to spread rapidly, most frequently to the lungs. Limb amputation may buy a dog some time, but it is usually not a cure.

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