Nearly 70 primary care veterinarians from across Florida and the country tuned in to listen to ACCC’s Jarred Lyons, DVM, Board-Certified in Radiation Oncology, discuss head and neck tumors in both dogs and cats. The presentation was part of the How to Navigate through the Cancer Diagnosis annual summer webinar series sponsored by Merck. A recording of his full talk is available here.
Dr. Lyons explained at the outset that definitive research in veterinary oncology is limited; therefore, he stressed the importance of personal experience and evaluating each animal as a unique patient.
“It’s not a matter of doing ‘a’ and you get ‘b,’” he said. “It’s more if we want to get to ‘b,’ ‘a’ may be the best path. We have to be careful not to give a false sense of hope, while recommending the best general approach with careful recommendations.”
In his practice, he always uses a proactive methodology, keeping in mind the location of the tumor and its grade. Diagnostic testing, he stressed, is absolutely essential in determining the most effective treatment options.
“My attitude is, if it acts like cancer, treat it like cancer,” he said, reviewing each of the testing options for determining staging for dogs and cats and the specific location of the tumor.
Among those tests are histopathology, a chemical panel, lymph node testing, thoracic radiographs, as well as CT scans and ultrasounds, with a urinalysis absolutely essential to assessing if the disease has affected other organs.
Surgery can be a great treatment option, explained Dr. Lyons, as long as margins of more than 1 cm can be obtained. Radiation is always recommended when margins are not feasible, and it is often used as a follow-up with chemotherapy and systemic therapies, such as Merck’s Gilvetmab immunotherapy or cancer vaccines as options, depending on the type of cancer, tumor size, and location.
Dr. Lyons also touched on palliative therapy, which he said is often misunderstood. Radiation has proven to be very effective in reducing pain, especially in older pets, often shrinking the tumor size and helping to provide a good quality of life.
He explained in detail the various forms of head and neck cancers for dogs and cats, including those located in the mouth, nasal area, brain, pituitary and salivary glands, and thyroid.
In summary, he emphasized that surgery is often the best option, as long as large enough margins are possible, followed by stereotactic radiation and chemotherapy for the most aggressive cancers.
Newer treatment options are also available and may be considered in certain cases. Electrochemotherapy (ECT), for example, is now offered at ACCC’s location in Melbourne. For more information on ECT, watch this video. Details, including recordings, on all upcoming and past webinars are available under the News & Events section (scroll down to continuing education events) of the ACCC website.