An inspirational book is helping dogs with cancer receive expensive medical treatments their owners can’t afford to give them.

Cliff and I: My Dog’s Journey Through Cancer and Beyond chronicles the author’s personal experience helping her German Shepherd battle cancer.

As a tribute to her beloved pet, Cliff’s writer Joanne M. DeFluri is donating the proceeds from every copy of the book purchased through the CanineCancerAwareness.org web site to CCA’s charity fund. (Buyers also need to mark their order “CCA” for the group to get the donation.)

Canine Cancer Awareness is a nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance and support to people caring for dogs diagnosed with cancer.

Small animals commonly develop cancers similar to those found in their human counterparts including lymphomas, hard and soft tissue sarcomas, adenocarcinomas and breast/mammary cancers. As it is with humans, early detection and treatment greatly improves an animal’s chance of surviving the disease. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, dogs or cats who display one or more of these symptoms should be examined by a qualified professional as soon as possible:

Abnormal swellings that persist or continue to grow
Sores that do not heal
Unusual weight loss
Loss of appetite
Bleeding or discharge from any body opening
Offensive odor
Difficulty eating or swallowing
Hesitation to exercise or loss of stamina
Persistent lameness or stiffness
Difficulty breathing, urinating or defecating

If you’re interested in purchasing Cliff, but you’d like to channel your charity dollars elsewhere, the $15.95 book is also available at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

Source: Canine Cancer Awareness Announcements

Related Links: NCI; Veterinary Cancer Society; American College of Veterinary Surgeons; Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement; Woman’s Day

Related Podcast: Dogs Shed New Light on Cancer Genes in Humans on The Online NewsHour from PBS

Technorati Tags: veterinary medicine; comparative oncology; cancer caregivers; animal advocacy; cancer survivors; canine chemotherapy

Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the international Pediatric Preclinical Testing Program have been busy trying to unlock the healing secrets of an unusual bacteria discovered in soil samples taken from the volcanic regions of Easter Island.

The bacteria produced a substance known as rapamycin, which was initially shown to be an effective anti-fungal agent. Things really got interesting when drug makers discovered that rapamycin also helped prevent organ rejection in transplant patients by suppressing their immune systems.

Now researchers are studying ways to harness the properties of rapamycin to develop molecularly targeted therapies for various cancers. The team’s preclinical trials with tumor cultures and mouse models have already shown rapamycin has the ability to effectively inhibit the progression of diseases such as rhabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and one form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A report in the online edition of Pediatric Blood and Cancer details the team’s progress to date. More testing is already in the works according to the report’s lead author,

“During the next stage of testing we will combine rapamycin with standard chemotherapy drugs to see if there are combinations that work particularly well against specific cancers. But the greatest potential for improving treatment might be combining rapamycin and other molecularly targeted drugs in specific ways according to the genetic characteristics of the cancer and of the child.”

Peter Houghton, PhD
Molecular Pharmacology Chair
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Source: St Jude Children’s Research Hospital News

Related Links: Lymphoma Research Foundation

Related Podcast: “Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: From Diagnosis to Therapy” from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Tags: sirolimus, immunosuppressant