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.
Interventional oncology
Interventional oncology procedures are commonly applied to treat primary or metastatic cancer. Interventional oncology may be offered once traditional surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy have failed or are not considered safe. IO treatments may be also offered in combination with any of the above oncological therapies in order to augment the therapeutic outcome in more complex or widespread (metastatic) cancer cases. There is an increase in the variety of applications of interventional oncological treatments for primary and metastatic cancer in different human body organs:Interventional oncology procedures are generally divided between diagnostic procedures that help obtain tissue diagnosis of suspicious neoplasms and therapeutic ones that aim to cure or palliate the tumour. Therapeutic interventional oncology procedures may be classified further into ablation techniques that destroy neoplastic tissues by delivery of some form of heat, cryo or electromagnetic energy and embolization techniques that aim to occlude the blood vessels feeding the tumour and thereby destroy it by means of ischemia. Both ablation and embolization techniques are minimally invasive treatment, i.e. they may be delivered through the skin (in a percutaneous way) without the need for any skin incisions or other form of open surgery. Hence, most treatments are nowadays offered as day case or outpatient appointments and patients may enjoy rapid recovery and minimal pain and discomfort with low rates of complications.