Q. I enjoyed your article in the April issue about new cancer treatments on the horizon. I’ve also heard there is something called a cancer vaccine. Can dogs really be inoculated against cancer?
John Pippin
Anniston, Alabama
Dear Mr. Pippin,
A. There are currently no vaccines that protect against the formation of cancer in dogs. But there are vaccines that can help keep cancer from spreading in a dog once it has developed. They’re called therapeutic vaccines. People tend to think of a vaccine only as something that wards off disease rather than as something that can help contain it. But “a vaccine is just a way to stimulate the immune system to recognize something that shouldn’t be there and then mobilize its army of cells to attack it and kill it,” says Tufts veterinary oncologist Cheryl London, DVM, PhD, Director of the Clinical Trials Office at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.
One vaccine targets malignant melanoma, especially when it occurs in the oral cavity. It’s a terrific advance because chemotherapy has not proven very helpful in containing oral melanoma.
Several other therapeutic cancer vaccines are currently in development. These include vaccines against canine lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes), osteosarcoma (bone cancer) and hemangiosarcoma (a common cancer of the spleen).
Results are looking promising, which is very good news since one in two older dogs develop cancer, with many succumbing to the disease.
My 11 yr old Walker Coonhound has just been tested for Lymphoma due to the fact that all of her lymph nodes are swollen. Has a vaccine for this disease been developed?
If so, please provide details.