posted by Tess on Feb 7
Cancer is an uncontrolled malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal cell division. Cancer can spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic system or the blood stream. Generally speaking, cancer is usually associated with the organ it affects and termed as such. Skin cancer is the most prevalent cancer in dogs and along with cancer of the mammary glands it forms nearly 58% of all cancers in dogs.
Carcinoma and sarcoma, the two out of the four major types of cancer, are the ones that normally occur in the skin of a dog that need to be differentiated for treatment purposes. Skin cancer usually affects four different types of cells and is divided into four categories as such.
* Epithelial tumors are associated with the skin, skin glands and hair follicles.
* Mesenchyme tumors are cancers resulting from cells that support fat, connective tissue, blood vessels and nerves.
* Round cell tumors include cancer of the external sex organs, mast cell tumors and plasma cell tumors.
* Melanomas are cancer of the cells responsible for pigment in the skin.
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posted by Tess on Feb 6
Despite a good prognosis for some types of cancer, due to the fatality and toxicity of the medication associated with it, pet owners are often confronted with a dilemma whether to go for a treatment or not. Most of the times, cancer in dogs occurs in old age making dogs more vulnerable to the side effects of conventional treatment. Surgery has a limited scope in as far as it can only excise parts of the tumor.
There is a dire need for exploring new areas of cancer treatment. Despite significant developments in this field, a lot more needs to be done to develop new strategies and drugs that target only cancerous cells and spare the normal cells.
The development of any new treatment needs to be done keeping in mind that any medication should cure the disease with a minimum of side effects. To achieve this goal the therapy has to target and destroy only the cancer cells while it allows the normal healthy cells to live.
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posted by Tess on Feb 3
Cancer is actually an uncontrolled growth of cells resulting from an accumulation of changes in the structure of the genes that control cell division and multiplication. Melanoma is one of the several malignant neoplasms, usually of the skin. The affected cell is mostly melanocytes, a cell in the basal layer of the epidermis that produces melanin under the control of the melanocyte-stimulating hormone. Benign and malignant skin tumors are a common form of canine and feline cancer.
Melanoma cancer in dogs occurs commonly in dark skinned animals, usually in areas under haired skin, as small, dark brown to black lumps. In certain cases they may appear as large flat wrinkled masses. Other areas where melanomas can also appear include mouth, digits and behind the eye. A swelling or increase in size of lymph nodes is the first clinical sign of a malignant melanoma. Although the pigment called melanin is the distinctive characteristic of such tumors, some melanomas may not display a darkly colored pigment.
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posted by Tess on Feb 1
There comes a life after a dog’s body has reached a certain size and maturity that the natural multiplication of cells by division stops producing new cells. Cells are then produced only to replace dead cells. The body produces new cells only in exceptional cases like a cellular injury.
Such replacement is the necessity of the body and the process of replacement or otherwise is natural. Sometimes there are instances when the controlling system that maintains a balance between the death and growth of cells is unsettled by internal or external factors. This causes the cell production to start producing in an unregulated production mode. This results in a mass of cells (tumor) that perform no specific function and are not required by the body.
Not all tumors or cancers in dogs, are harmful for the body. Sometimes the cells that grow unnecessarily resemble the normal cells of the organ from which they grow. These are benign tumors.
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