Innovative Cancer Care for Pets

The story below is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!

Photo above: Co-locating the ACCRC in the same facility as FBRI supports comparative oncology studies that will benefit both pets and people with cancer. Courtesy of VT Animal Cancer Care & Research Center

Virginia Tech’s Animal Cancer Care & Research Center offers innovative treatments that give pets a fighting chance.

Jordy the dog began developing tumors at age 10, says owner Taylor Reschka. Jordy’s veterinarian called them lipomas — fairly common, soft, non-cancerous lumps. Reschka and his wife Stephanie only needed to be concerned if the lumps became hard or hot to the touch, the veterinarian had said.

“Well, sure enough, one day we were petting him,” Reschka says. “And I was like, that’s a warm spot, and this a hard spot.” 

Bad Juju

People always want to know what to look for when it comes to spotting cancer in their pets, says Dr. Natalie McLaughlin, a veterinarian at Big Lick Veterinary Services who has not treated the animals mentioned in this article. 

“In all situations, [it’s] different,” she says. Some of the more common symptoms include: not eating, vomiting, lethargy, generally not feeling well, unexplained weight loss, labored breathing and lameness.

“An owner [might find] a mass on the animal’s belly, like a lump, and they ask, ‘What’s this?’” McLaughlin says. “And, sure enough, it’s bad juju.” 

Cancer can appear in most body systems. McLaughlin stresses the importance of regular check-ups with lab work. That gives her a chance to find the problem before the animal is not feeling well.

McLaughlin tries to get to the bottom of problems in-house. Sometimes she can arrive at a diagnosis through lab work alone. Sometimes, she needs to conduct fine needle aspiration, in which she extracts fluid from a mass or a lymph node. Sometimes she takes a biopsy. She also has x-rays and ultrasounds at her disposal.

The Referral  

Reschka’s veterinarian ran the diagnostics. Jordy’s lump was a cancerous sarcoma. There wasn’t much they were going to be able to do because of the sarcoma’s location on his hip and Jordy’s advancing age. “The surgeon at the vet said that it wasn’t a good spot for surgery,” Reschka remembers. 

When a case is complicated, veterinarians make referrals to places like Virginia Tech’s Animal Cancer Care & Research Center. 

Reschka was advised to take Jordy to the ACCRC for further diagnostics and a second opinion about the surgery. Their veterinarian reasoned that knowing what degree, or grade, of cancer they were looking at would empower them to make an informed decision about how to proceed. Reschka made the appointment and waited.

A Complex Disease

The ACCRC is located at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion in Roanoke. There, a team of veterinary oncologists offer pet cancer patients integrated comprehensive medical care with a noble goal — to cure cancer. 

In practice, this means that a dog or cat — or even one cancer-stricken iguana — can walk through the doors and and receive a combination of surgical, medical or radiation treatments. It’s all completed under one roof, making cancer treatments convenient for pet owners while facilitating collaboration between oncologists.

“That is a unique advantage that we offer to the families who come to see us because cancer is a complex disease,” says Dr. Joanne Tuohy, Tuohy, associate professor of surgical oncology at the ACCRC and at VT’s Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

In addition to treating cancer patients, the center is a research facility, where owners can choose to enroll their pets in clinical trials. Tuohy leads an interdisciplinary team of researchers who are studying osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer most commonly treated with chemotherapy and amputation. The survival rate after treatment is poor; dogs are expected to live a year, people have a five-year survival rate of 65% to 70%. 

Tuohy and her team are innovating a non-invasive treatment method that uses histotripsy, in which ultrasound technology is used to create bubbles to remove tumors. Last spring, VT received a National Cancer Institute grant to further this work, which is expected to result in a more precise, image-driven prototype.

In recent years, VT has also been awarded grants to identify tumor-disrupting techniques for pancreatic and liver cancer and soft-tissue sarcomas, as well as other cancers.

VT associate professor Eli Vlaisavljevich and Dr. John Rossmeisl, who served as the ACCRC interim director from 2021-2022 and is now a professor and associate department head at the VMCVM, have been focused on alleviating difficult-to-treat brain tumors in companion animals and humans. Their study resulted in the first-ever histotripsy brain tumor ablation performed in a clinical patient. The patient — a dog named Lucy.

As Spirited As Ever

Tuohy met Shreeya Basnyat and her dog, Bean, last November after Bean suddenly developed a large lump on one of his rear legs. Basnyat and Bean, of Raleigh, North Carolina, visited their family veterinarian, who took some x-rays. As McLaughlin would say, it was bad juju. 

Basnyat’s veterinarian said the lump was suspicious for osteosarcoma. They were referred to a North Carolina oncologist, but Basnyat and her husband knew that time was of the essence. They kept looking for someone who could see Bean as soon as possible.

A friend sent Basnyat a copy of Tuohy’s osteosarcoma research. She and husband Zach Lawson were encouraged. They requested a referral from their veterinarian. In December, Bean visited the ACCRC to confirm his diagnosis. Shortly thereafter, he underwent two histotripsy treatments and then his affected leg was amputated five days later. 

Bean stayed overnight at the ACCRC and was then discharged to return home. For Basnyat and Lawson, this was the best outcome possible. Today, Bean is as spirited as ever.

“It was miraculous. No problems at all,” Basnyat says. “It’s almost as if he didn’t need that other leg.” 

One Health

Tuohy began working with VT’s veterinary school of medicine in 2019, the year before ACCRC opened. She was attracted by the idea of comparative oncology — a practice that FBRI executive director Michael Friedlander has referred to as “one health,” according to a 2015 Roanoke Times article. The cancers that develop in humans and in pets share many features, and so, Friedlander surmised at that time, researchers who collaborated across human and animal health sciences could unlock new treatments. Even then, innovators at FBRI were designing a comparative, translational research environment. Today, the ACCRC’s work is integrated with studies emerging from collaborators at FBRI and across the VT community.

Bean had two histotripsy treatments and immunotherapy in addition to his surgery. Tuohy is hopeful that her work will eventually lead to fewer invasive procedures and longer lifespans for animals and people suffering from osteosarcoma. “Combining this very new treatment technique with immunotherapies, we try to improve the survival for these patients as well,” she says.

It’s All Gravy

Reschka took Jordy to the ACCRC for his diagnostic exam. He describes the visit like any other trip to the veterinarian, with a focus on finding out what’s wrong and moving forward to fix the problem. But Reschka was only there for the diagnosis, to have the sarcoma graded. He would need time to discuss that information with his family veterinarian before moving ahead. He negotiated the specifics of the fee structure and the diagnostic information he would receive from the center.

When they were finished, Reschka remembers that Jordy was so grateful to hit the door that he relieved himself as quickly as possible. It had been a stressful day for everyone, it seemed. 

But they had good news. Jordy’s sarcoma was barely a grade one. His lump would remain in place. It’s now the size of a small melon. It affects Jordy’s mobility a little bit, Reschka says, and that’s all.

“He has a hitch in his giddy-up, but he hasn’t slowed down,” he says of Jordy, now 13.

Celebrate the Good

Veterinarians understand that referrals are expensive. Other options are available to help your pets live good lives for as long as possible, McLaughlin says.

“We just try to celebrate the good days,” she says. “We feel it deeply as providers [when we have to deliver bad news]. I cry with patients. I’m 25 years out of med school and I’m still crying.”

The story above is from our March/April 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!