Cancer in dogs
Treatment options vary and depend on the type and stage of cancer. Common treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, amputation, and immunotherapy. A combination of therapies may be used. Knowledge and treatment of cancer have increased significantly in the past three decades. Survival rates have also increased due to the increase prevalence of canine cancer treatment centers and breakthroughs in targeted drug development. Canine cancer treatment has become an accepted clinical practice and access to treatment for owners has widely expanded recently. Cancer-targeting drugs most commonly function to inhibit excessive cell proliferation by attacking the replicating cells. However, there is still a prevalent pharmacy gap in veterinary oncology.
Cancer Breakthroughs 2020
Cancer Breakthroughs 2020, formerly Cancer Moonshot 2020, is a coalition announced in January 2016 in the United States with the goal of finding vaccine-based immunotherapies against cancer. By pooling the resources of multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology companies, academic centers and oncologists, it intends to create access to over 60 novel and approved agents under exploration in the war against cancer and is expected to enable rapid testing of novel immunotherapy combination protocols. The initiative is being managed by a consortium of companies called The National Immunotherapy Coalition (NIC). The NIC plans to design, initiate and complete randomized clinical trials in cancer patients with cancer at all stages of disease in up to 20 tumor types in as many as 20,000 patients by the year 2020. The project's stated goal is to aggressively focus on rapidly developing new treatments for the disease. The organization attempts to rethink how cancer is tackled, using the body's own immune system and re-training it to detect and destroy the body's cancer cells.