Canine Cancer

In my last post, I ended with the news that my female bi-black Sheltie, Ceilidh was diagnosed with a Mast Cell tumour. She had surgery on 21 January, her 7th birthday, to remove the tumour. The surgeon was able to get out the whole tumour with 2cm margins and the tumour was sent to the lab to grade the tumour. Unfortunately, although we had clean margins, the tumour was a Grade 3 tumour, the most malignant type of this cancer. In 80% of dogs the cancer will come back. The recommendation of the oncologist was to begin chemotherapy so after she had her sutures removed, we met again with Dr Bravo and decided to try Palladia. Palladia is a new drug just approved by the FDA in June 2009 for mast cell tumours in dogs. Ceilidh had her first dose of Palladia last Friday and her second today on 8 February 2010. We have to keep a watchful eye for any of the side effects. We will have a recheck with the oncologist on 19 Feb 2010. We are hopeful that this will give her the best chance for a good quality of life for whatever time we have together.

She is healing well from her surgery. We are keeping a very close eye in the area around the incision. I'll post a few pictures of Ceilidh and will keep up this blog as our journey progresses.