Over at k9magazine.com there's an article presenting us dog owners with some very good news! Below is the first couple of paragraphs, along with a link to the entire story. Enjoy!
Another Step Forward in the Fight Against Canine Cancer
A pharmaceutical company in the United States has announced that it has received conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to market a therapeutic DNA vaccine designed to treat melanoma, a serious form of cancer, in dogs. "Conditional approval" means the product has been shown to be safe and have a reasonable expectation of efficacy in treating melanoma. The designation allows drug company, Merial to market the therapeutic vaccine while collecting additional efficacy data to support full marketing approval. "This canine melanoma therapeutic DNA vaccine is the first companion animal product to receive conditional approval for our licensee Merial," said Vijay B. Samant, Vical's President and Chief Executive Officer, "which represents a significant advancement for our DNA delivery platform technology, building on the previous approval of a vaccine for farm-raised salmon for another of our licensees. Through our independent and partnered programs, we continue advancing toward initial approvals of DNA-based human health products for infectious diseases, cancer, and angiogenesis. We believe the progress of this DNA-based therapeutic vaccine for canine melanoma bodes well for DNA- based approaches for human melanoma. We are particularly encouraged by the prospects for our Allovectin-7(R)
Link to entire article.
Hi, I was directed here by Reddit and was wondering if you could give me any insight into this problem with my dog's ear.
I think it was about 10 months ago that my dog started to grow some sort of red bump on her ear. My family doesn't know how old and what breed my dog is because we picked it off of the streets. After a visit to the vet, we were prescribed some Hydrocortisone Acetate Cream USP, under the brand Hyderm, that was supposed to help. As the weeks went on, the bump/pimple grew bigger and bigger. We were prescribed another cream: Chlrohexidine acetate B.P., under the brand Hibitane (supposedly antibacterial and antifungal). Again, the cream did not work and my dog was forced to get a biopsy.
After analyzing the chunk they cut off, they couldn't come up with anything productive, saying that the piece they cut off was too small. So, we reluctantly made our dog get ANOTHER biopsy (the vets said there was a small chance of her not waking up). We had a blood test taken, x-rays to see if the infection had spread to her lungs, and ultimately spent nearly 3000 dollars for absolutely nothing. Now, the vets are asking us to send the chunk to the US (I live in Quebec, Canada) for further analysis, which will cost a fair amount of money.
Could anyone give my some advice as to what's wrong with my dog? Am I being ripped off of here, or should we send the chunk for analysis in the US?
Honestly, I'm shocked that after all those experiments, they still couldn't suggest anything to help my dog in anyway whatsoever. As for description, it started off as a red lump, but the lump grew larger and other lumps started to form as well.
*I have a paper containing what information they got from the first biopsy (results of the second one are still coming). It's really long and I'm too lazy to type it out. But if you think it could help, I'd gladly type it out.
**I've also got some pictures of the infection:
First off a picture of my dog: http://imgur.com/P2ZkE.jpg
and now the infection WARNING pics are a bit gruesome, so click at your own discretion:
http://imgur.com/ieHZP.jpg
http://imgur.com/ReXyg.jpg
http://imgur.com/hipOZ.jpg
we have a male, 4 year old yellow lab and he has these small dark lumps/bumps on the edges of his ear flaps. the biggest ones are pea sized. They do not seem to be bothering him they just look bad. They went away for a while about a year ago w/some special shapoo from our vet and now thay are back bigger than ever and more of them. This is not a hematoma. Any idea what they could be and where I can look on the net for more info? Thanks
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Questions Answered By:
Dr. Lauryn Spohn, DVM
