Dog Parvo Symptoms

Oral tumors:

Maxillary, mandibular, lingual, tonsilar and salivary glands.

Aggressive surgical excision, whenever feasible, usually yields the highest survival times and tumor control. Adequate surgical margins are often difficult to achieve in the oral cavity, so adjuvant radiation therapy is required for residual disease. Radiation therapy is effective for incompletely resected or for non-resectable oral tumors (either due to critical tissue involvement or due to declination of the procedure by the owners).

While Acanthomatous epulides do not metastasize, they are often locally aggressive and destructive; requiring an aggressive response. They are very responsive to radiation therapy either as a sole modality or as a complement to surgery. Median survival times of over 3 years have been reported (with an 85% 1 year survival rate).

Low-grade fibrosarcoma, nodular fascitis, invasive fibroma and granulation tissue. Be particularly cautious if one of the above is listed as originating from an oral or facial mass. There is a form of fibrosarcoma that behaves very aggressively while appearing very benign histologically. If this clinical behavior is noted, another histopathological opinion is recommended. An aggressive approach to these tumors is mandatory because they progress very quickly and are extremely locally invasive. Ideally, these are best approached with a combination of radiation followed by surgery.

Canine Squamous cell carcinomaSSC is best treated with a combination of radiation therapy, surgery and chemotherapy. A 1-2 year survival time has been achieved with radiation and surgery, while radiation alone had a median survival of approximately 16 months. Prognosis and tumor response depends on location (the most rostral lesions have a higher success rate than caudal lesions), which is also true for Lingual SCC.

Good tumor control is not as successfully achieved in Feline SCC as in canine SSC. The most aggressive approach combining radiation, surgery and chemotherapy yields the best results. Radiation alone, radiation plus chemotherapy, and surgery plus radiation do produce positive results but survival times are not as long as achieved in treating canine SCC.

Malignant melanomas do respond to radiation, but tend to respond better to fewer but larger doses. While local control is usually gained with radiation therapy, many of these cases metastasize and are best treated with radiation and some form of chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy. Unfortunately, an agent to systemically control this particular cancer has yet to be identified.

Normal lymphocytic cells are generally very radiosensitive. Radiation therapy is very effective in treating Focal lymphosarcoma and particularly effective as an emergency treatment of obstructive oral lymphoma of the tongue and pharyngeal region.

Mycosis fungoides is a cutaneous neoplastic process involving helper T-cells. A variation of mycosis fungoides limited to the oral cavity and mucocutaneous margins has been successfully treated with radiation therapy alone. In widespread cases involving both the oral cavity and multiple cutaneous sites, radiation therapy has successfully treated the oral cavity and certain painful cutaneous lesions that are non-responsive to chemotherapy.

Local recurrence of Salivary tumors commonly results within 6 months following surgery alone, suggesting the need for adjuvant therapy. Limited data is available regarding radiation therapy, but a report on three cases treated with radiation and surgery obtained tumor control durations of 12, 25 and 40 months. Chemotherapy should also be considered for metastatic disease.