News @lemmy.world MicroWave @lemmy.world 4 mo. ago

Cancer vaccine for dogs almost doubles survival rates in clinical trial

newatlas.com Cancer vaccine for dogs almost doubles survival rates in clinical trial

The biggest tragedy of pet ownership is that they just don’t live long enough. Thankfully scientists are working on that, with a new cancer vaccine for dogs that almost doubles their survival rates in the face of certain types of the disease.

67 comments

The biggest tragedy of pet ownership is that they just don’t live long enough.

This is true, but there is no 'long enough' unless it is 'from the moment you get it until you die.' The pain of losing a dog is just an unfortunate part of having a dog and they just will never live long enough for you to not feel that pain.
- My sister lost her dog this weekend in a freak accident and everyone in the family - not just her husband and kids - are devastated. He was such an essential part of every gathering.
  
  He wasn't just a dog, he was my friend.
  
  I'm sorry for your loss. My dog is getting older and I don't know what my family will do without her when she passes away.
  
  I am so sorry for both you and your sister and her family. Thankfully, all of my dogs have lived a full life and when they end came, it wasn't a surprise. It is so much sadder when it's unexpected.
  
  I'm sorry. I know your heart is broken and nothing but time can ease it. I lost my cat in January at 15 years old from hyperthyroid related kidney failure. We met when she was a feral kitten and ran out from under a food truck and tried to take me down by the ankle. We bonded instantly. It has me at a heightened state of awareness of the mortality of my two dogs and remaining cat. It hurts like hell and I'm so sorry you lost your friend.
- I know what you are saying, but I don't agree. I'd take one more year with my dog over no more years any day. Breeding all kinds of crazy types of dogs, but never for a longer life is nuts.
  
  Would one more year really have been long enough though?
  
  Longer would be better, sure, but would you have ever gotten to a point where you would have been okay to lose that dog?
- Maybe this is being too cold-hearted, but we tend to choose pets that live a fraction of a human's life. There are many animals which could make good pets except they live as long as humans (if not a lot longer).
  
  I think what this article was something like,
  
  The biggest tragedy of pet ownership is that sometimes those pets die far too soon due to illness.
  
  I don't know that many of them can have the symbiotic relationship we have with dogs.
  
  I feel like messing with animals' lifespans is playing God too much. Then again, we made the Chihuahua, and if anything was an affront to God it'd be that.
- Life is short. There's never enough time to be with your loved ones.
- Yep. I can remember this past October when we lost our dog of 15 years, telling myself and my girlfriend that we were never going to avoid this happening to him/us. There was no magic formula or pill or procedure that was going to give him to us forever.
  
  And while it didn’t necessarily make us feel better about it, it made enough sense that it helped us cope with the loss with better understanding.
  
  I'm watching my dog get gray in the muzzle and struggling with this myself. Thank you.
- they just will never live long enough for you to not feel that pain.
  
  Well, you can have a dog in your senior years.
  
  Sure, but you will have lost all the others before that. Unless that is your first dog.
Could have used this two years ago
- I'm sorry, friend.
  
  ♥️
can't afford to get my old man back fixed, but rich people dogs gonna live forever
- In America, you can get free coverage if you are broke enough.
  
  Where are you living? What kind of income?
  
  And you think dog vaccines are bad because you have other problems? You should be embarrassed for letting your hurt turn into intentionally wishing more pain and death on others.
  
  I'm sure your father would love to see your love for him turn into pointless hatred for dogs.
  
  Backs are notoriously hard to fix. And low coverage often will not cover anything more than physical therapy and an opium addiction.
  
  There are states where you can’t get medical coverage from the state unless you’re a child or disabled. Every state didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility and every state runs its healthcare system differently.
  
  If you’re going to veer into such an intentionally bad faith reading of someone else’s comment you should at least be right about what you’re saying.
  
  In America, you can get free coverage if you are broke enough.
  
  Can you tell me who gives broke people free coverage for chemo? How about physical therapy after a serious injury? Mental health care?
Yeah! The world needs more good boys!
- Yes, but also more homes for the good boys already in shelters waiting to be adopted.
  
  Neutering and spaying dogs should be a requirement for ownership unless you are some sort of registered and certified breeder of some sort with a limited amount of licenses allowed to prevent over breeding.
A few thoughts: Yes, this is literally animal testing.

This study was published 2.5 years ago.

Overall survival at 1 year at 65 % vs 35-40 with standard of care.

No serious side effects.

The peptide sequence was carefully selected.
- Original scientific article link for those interested. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8379704/
  
  In humans a 12 month OS change from 35-40% to 65% is impressive. I would be super excited about a therapy for my pup that would add 6 months to my pup's life. The median survival improvement from 307 days to 478 days is enough for me to ask for that therapy instead of chemo and amputation for my pup's osteosarcoma or other HER2 driven cancers.
  
  I think the treatment was in top of chemo and amputation. Anyhow, I agree with you.

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