Exploring a Less Invasive Treatment
for Bone Cancer
n The standard treatment for the most common type of bone cancer to befall dogs — osteosarcoma — is to amputate the limb that contains the diseased bone. The vast majority of dogs undergoing amputation adjust extremely well to life on three legs. The downside is that even if that step is followed up with chemotherapy, survival time averages only about a year. And though the disease tends to befall large dogs, not all such dogs make good surgery candidates. Heavyset giant breeds like Saint Bernards and Newfoundlands, for instance, may not be good candidates for amputation of a front leg as they need all four limbs to walk.
Now researchers at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine have found that a much less invasive treatment holds promise. Called histotripsy, it’s a form of ultrasound. But unlike ultrasound used for imaging, histotripsy employs controlled ultrasound pulses to mechanically break up tissue in a targeted area, such as the tissue of a tumor.
Reporting in the journal Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, the researchers observed that canine bone cancer tissue collected during amputations and then treated by histotripsy underwent complete disintegration without damaging healthy tissue nearby. Future studies will evaluate the treatment in actual dogs. If the results bear out, it may eventually prove to be a viable way to avoid amputation.
Improved treatments cannot come too soon. Bone cancer is one of the most painful malignancies to befall our canine friends.
Can They Really Talk To Us?
n Dr. Doolittle could talk to the animals, but could the dogs talk back? Cute videos and late-night talk shows would make it seem as though the answer is yes. We’ve all seen footage of dogs saying “I love you” (more like “I ruuuu uuuu”) and other short sentences.
But they’re not speaking. They’re simply imitating sounds. They delight in our delight, and that makes them try to get it right. (Blame their poor pronunciation on their inability to use their tongues and lips to make sounds the way we do.)
Interestingly, while dogs do not have a language center in their brains, new research out of Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University suggests that they can understand the difference between spoken language and gibberish. MRI on 18 dogs showed different brain activity in response to gibberish. The researchers think it may be something about the rhythms of real speech that dogs pick up on. Whatever it is, their capacity to “read” us continues to run deeper than we know.
