Man's Best Friend

In FierceAnimalHealth's Arlene Weintraub's article today entitled Researchers tap dogs for insights into stopping cancer metastasis, she writes:

Because dogs and people get many of the same types of cancer, Lunsford and her colleagues believe their research efforts will ultimately boost human oncology research..."We want to better understand how to diagnose and control those initial tumors and eliminate the risk of metastasis..." 

Dogs are taking an increasingly important role in cancer research, and not just in academia. Several biotech companies are also embracing companion canine research as a way to advance human therapeutics."

In his Cityview Magazine interview published this week, Craig said:

"Yes! The first real patient was treated right here at the UT Vet school—a three-and-a-half year old German shepherd named Rookie, who had surgery and radiation to cure a tumor in its nose, but it grew back. Rookie received PV-10, the tumor disappeared—and the dog lived at least three more years."

Craig et al. repeated their work using Rose Bengal and PV-10 — local effectiveness, systemic effectiveness, combination therapy, and multi-indication viability — from cell lines to mice to higher level animals such as dogs and horses to humans. Their work has been reproduced — in small and large part — from cell lines to mice to higher level animals to humans.

Click to enlarge.