Research is done only on animals with cancer and in the context of clinical trials. No experimental animals are used. The Morris Animal Foundation, American Veterinary Medical Foundation and National Institutes of Health are among groups that finance research. Not long ago, we had to amputate limbs. Now doctors can remove a cancerous bone and replace it with a healthy bone from the center's bone bank.
Similar procedures save limbs in children with bone cancer.
That's what Ogilvie and colleagues call another limb-sparing surgical treatment for bone cancer. It involves removing the affected bone with the joint attached, irradiating the cancerous bone and replacing it in the body. We've been developing a system to be able to give chemotherapy in a slow-release polymer injected under the skin. The polymer releases the chemicals over weeks. Veterinarian oncologists, like their counterparts in human medicine, also are using new drugs that aim to block the ability of cancer cells to survive and aim to boost the immune response.