Complete Care for Your Aging Cat - Amy Shojai [82]
A detection technique from human medicine, called TRAP (Telomeric Repeat Amplification Protocol), is now available for veterinary use. The test detects telomerase, an enzyme that helps cancer cells recreate themselves indefinitely. Activity of telomerase appears to be a unique feature of noncancerous tumor cells that turn into malignant cancers, says Dr. Kitchell. Since normal cells don’t usually produce the enzyme, its presence is an indication of cancer. Dr. Kitchell’s study on cats, published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research, showed the presence of telomerase activity in twenty-nine of thirty-one malignant tumors, and in only one of twenty-two benign tumors studied over a two-year period. She hopes that an in-house veterinary test kit for early detection of cancer will become available for local practitioners in the near future.
Once cancer has been diagnosed, owners have several decisions to make. Although that can be scary and emotionally draining to you, your cat won’t know why you are upset. She feels the same as she did yesterday, and isn’t worried about the future. Also, Dr. Ehrhart says that cancer is almost never a physical emergency so you should carefully discuss the options with your family and veterinarian and figure out what you want to do.
Having a good relationship with your cat’s doctor is very important because you can ask questions and feel comfortable taking her advice. Dr. Kitchell says oncologists must be able to temper their clinical knowledge with empathy for the patient. “It takes both to be good at this job,” she says. Part of the doctor’s role is to help you make the best choice for your cat’s individual situation. “What’s right for you might not be the right choice for the next person,” says Dr. Ehrhart. “We will support whatever decision you make.”
Flexibility is built into treatment plans because not all owners have the same goals for their cats. “Some clients want to cure the animal of cancer,” says Dr. Kitchell. That allows the doctor to offer very aggressive therapy. “I also have patients who just want him to live until kids come home from college to see him in the summer,” she says.
No matter what the goal, though, nobody wants the treatment make the cat feel bad. “These animals should feel well during therapy, they should feel well after surgery, they shouldn’t feel worse. We have the ability to make them feel good every single day,” says Dr. Ehrhart.
Treatment
People need to understand that cancer is controllable, and sometimes it is even a curable disease, says Stephen J. Withrow, DVM, director of the Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University. “You don't have to cure to heal. There's always something that can be done to improve quality of life.” He says that cure rates for malignant tumors in pets are 25 percent to 30 percent. In human medicine, it's 40 percent to 50 percent for adults and 70 percent to 80 percent for children. “Cancer is more curable than commonly treated diseases like diabetes and heart failure.”
Veterinary oncologists use the same treatments to remove, shrink, or stop the cancer growth as human doctors do. Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are employed singly or in combination, with the goal of keeping normal tissue untouched. Several new therapies are also available that may help.
Dr. Kitchell says it’s hard to say what’s most common or “normal” for cancer therapies because each patient is different. Trial and error is often the name of the game because it’s not possible to predict how every cat will react. “If it works for this patient, we keep going. If it makes the animal