We have a 12-13 year old rescue dog (mostly border collie) who we adore. She is nearly the perfect dog. A few weeks ago she had a growth removed (it wasn’t there at her early March dental cleaning) from her mouth, it came back as a malignant melanoma. The margins were clean. A subsequent chest xray showed clear lungs.
There is a vaccine (Oncept) for malignant melanoma. It is more of a treatment than a vaccine. I am curious if anyone has had experience with this. We are struggling with the high costs of the treatment.
Thanks
No experience, but good luck. Having a sick dog is no fun, for you and especially for the dog.
I’m sorry about this! How did you know it was a melanoma, and not just a wart or one of those bumps that come and go on a dog? Was it obvious that it was something bad? One of my girls has something on her mouth, but I was assuming it was no big deal, now I’m going to bring her in to get it looked at.
Good luck with your girl.
How much is the treatment?
Where exactly was the growth? (need to look in my dogs’ mouths!)
Q. How and where is ONCEPT administered? Why are four doses of the vaccine necessary?
A. ONCEPT is administered into the inner thigh muscle of the dog with a needle-free Canine Transdermal Device. Initial treatment requires administration of four doses of vaccine, one every two weeks. After this initial series, dogs receive one booster every six months. Each time dogs receive a dose, their immune response becomes stronger in the fight against melanoma.
Is each injection about $500? That seems to be the range I’m seeing, but I know costs can vary by region.
Each injection also requires an examination. Our nearest vet oncologist is 750 a treatment. Our vet is calling the vet school to see what their price is and I left a message with the one other vet oncologist in the metro Atlanta area.
The growth was on the left side of the inside of her mouth, on her jaw, all of a sudden her breath got really stinky and my husband went to brush her teeth, something we do fairly regularly. Plus she had a dental cleaning in March and it wasn’t there.
They biopsied it. It actually is a common kind of canine cancer in some breeds of dogs apparently.
She is acting just fine and even when the growth was there, she was eating, drinking and playing normally, (this is typical based on my reading.
Before spending that kind of money you might want to consider the life span of border collies. If the margins were clean, chest looked good, and she’s acting normal it may never reoccur. One of our dogs had cancer that was removed and he live a long life doing nothing else. Sounds like you may have caught it early if it wasn’t there in March.