PETS GET CANCER, TOO: Cancer isn't just a human disease. According to veterinary oncologist Dr. Cheryl London, from the University of California, Davis, at least 50 percent of dogs that live to 10 years old will get some cancer in their lifetime. She says: "The number one killer in dogs is cancer. It's very high for the dog population." Dogs aren't the only pets that can develop cancer. Cats are also at risk. London says, "Anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent of cats will get some cancer in their lifetime." So what do you do when a pet gets cancer? London said, "We use chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy similar to the way they do in people. The difference is the intensity of therapy. In most cases, quality of life is really, really important. Our goal is to treat the cancer, but maintain the quality of life so that the pet is feeling good, is running around and not affected by the treatment."

CLINICAL TRIALS FOR PETS? Some animals may need more aggressive treatment than the standard chemo, surgery or radiation allows. Dr. London says there are other options. One way to offer more years to a pet with terminal cancer is by enrolling him in a clinical trial to test new drugs or therapies. In a recent trial at UC, Davis, London was using a drug to treat extremely aggressive tumors in dogs. She said, "We were treating patients that had advanced cancers that had failed everything prior to coming. Our response rate was around 30 percent. We had a lot of patients who experienced stable disease for long periods of time. The total biological response including stable disease was around 50 percent, which is pretty good for a phase I clinical trial." A phase I trial is meant to test for safety and toxicity, so London said seeing that kind of response so early was encouraging.

PET TRIALS ALSO HELP HUMANS: The study at UC, Davis, on the drug to treat cancer in dogs had another objective: To see how a similar drug might work in humans with cancer. London said, "It's extremely exciting to see something that has a potential to impact cancer, not just in animals, but in humans." London said this kind of research is invaluable. She said, "We can establish relationships between drug concentration and specific biological endpoints that can be difficult to establish in humans and we can do it a little bit more rapidly than they can in the human arena. I just think it's fascinating that we have an entirely huge population of patients (animals) with cancer that has not been well studied. We have dogs and cats with spontaneous cancers. They live in the same environment that we do. They're exposed to a lot of the same environmental influences that humans are and they get cancers."

HUMAN STUDY IN PHASE III: Human trials of a similar drug to the one that was studied in dogs at UC, Davis are ongoing. The human drug is currently called SU11248. At this year's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, researchers reported that the drug has more activity against aggressive kidney cancer than any other single agent evaluated in patients with the disease. In a second study of the drug, researchers found it can shrink or slow the progression of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) after patients develop resistance to treatment with the drug Gleevec.

For More Information, Contact:
Pat Bailey
Public information Representative
University of California, Davis Medical Center
(530) 752-9843
pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
www.ucdavis.edu

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