Horses and Cancer

As many of you know, before I was swept away in the Barbaro current, I was working on a book in conjunction with Penn Vet Hospital about treating pets with cancer. I learned a lot about treatment options that are available to pets with the disease and also about the lengths to which some people will go to care for their pets.

I was also surprised to learn that horses, for some unknown reason, do not get cancer as frequently as dogs and cats. (Actually more dogs get cancer each year than people, but that is another story...) Because of the relatively infrequent appearance of cancer in horses, there are not as many protocols for treating the disease when it does occur.

News comes from Washington State University, however, about its success in treating horses with certain types of tumors with radiation. Their biggest (on many levels!) success story is that of Ghostbuster, a Clydesdale/Thoroughbred cross who was treated with radiation in 2005 and whose cancer has not returned.

First of all, Washington State University has a linear accelerator, a very expensive piece of equipment that is able to deliver a precise amount of radiation to the tumor with minimal impact to the surrounding skin. Second of all, the vets at Washington State developed a method of anesthetizing horses and moving them to and from the linear accelerator in a safe and rapid manner.

Ghostbuster was anesthetized and treated twice a day for five days, according to Dr. Kelly Farnsworth, a WSU professor and equine surgeon. "Typically the procedure from the time he was anesthetized to the time he was back in the recovery stall was around 12 to 13 minutes," she elaborated. "The treatment in the linear accelerator lasted only about 25 to 30 seconds and the rest of the time was spend transporting him to and from the linear accelerator. He came through the treatments without any problems at all."

These radiation treatments have been most successful in treating common skin tumors such as melanomas, sarcoids and squamous cell carcinomas but any tumor that has not metathesized and that fits under the beam should be considered.

So file that away in the back of your brains because Penn Vet also has a linear accelerator although I think it has only been used on small animals.

At least so far.