Canine Bladder Cancer (tcc)

I wanted to offer my sympathy on the passing on Dov and Elie. May all of your wonderful memories bring you some comfort.

We had to make that torturing decision to say goodbye to our sheltie- Brannigan too on September 15th and I feel the same as you. She was our first baby, before we had our children. Her final moments were so peaceful in our arms in the home she lived her entire life. Our vets were wonderful and very supportive and we were grateful that they came to our home.

It was one of the saddest days of our lives. She was almost 15 and lived 14 mos with TCC. We have done all we could and it was her time to go.

I want to thank all of you for the wonderful information that I gained from this post, for all of the times I needed support and guidance.

A special THANK YOU to Marty and GENTLE ANNIE! Warmest wished to each of you and all of your furry babies who are lucky to have families that love them so very much!!

Our 9 year old sheltie was diagnosed with TCC in May 08. We opted to treat her with Metacam. She was asymptomatic except for straining to urinate. We were hoping for a simple bladder infection. There were also cancer cells in her vaginal canal. Has anyone else been told this? I asked if it could be shedding from the bladder tumor, but the vet said no. Monthly ultrasounds have shown that the tumor in her bladder has not grown. Lately she has had urge incontinence. All of a sudden she has to go and it just comes out. This is always when we are home. She doesn't have accidents when we aren't there. She has had some bloody vaginal discharge, but it cleared up after a round of antibiotics. We have not done a probe to see what is going on there, just the ultrasounds of her bladder. Wondering if someone has had a dog with similar symptoms and what we can expect next.

So sorry to hear about your Brannigan.  I hope Elie and Bran become friends at the bridge.  Actually, that's a given... Elie loves all shelties.

J&K

Hi Sheltiemum,

Sorry for what you guys are going through... it sucks.

We saw similar symptoms with Elie... usually her incontinence happened when someone new came around.  At home she was pretty darn good... only a few accidents and towards the end she had to tell us to go out rather than use the dog door.

Elie never had any blood in her urine or discharge. She did fuss at her vulva area in the last few weeks.  Neosporin seemed to help maybe just to sooth her irritation.  Might be worth a try

We were told 1-3 months (we knew we were probably already 3-6 months in to this). We treated with Piroxicam and switched to a no-grain diet. She lasted exactly 3 months.  She never lost her spirit, but she did start losing her apppetite. That's when we knew we were close.  The last week or so was a free for all: hot dogs, cereal, turkey, chicken wrapped in apple (really).

Hope that helps even a little,

Jeff

Is your RR still with us?

I have an 11-yr old RR with what I suspect will be diagnosed as bladder cancer, so I was referred to this board by a friend and the first message was yours.  I will read through more posts in the next few days, but wanted to ask if anyone knows where I can get Graviola in New Orleans, Louisiana?

What else should I look into?

FYI:  We don't have a diagnosis yet.  11-yr old female RR has been peeing blood for about 2 months now.  No bacteria in urine.  Two rounds of antibiotics did nothing.  X-ray showed no lumps.  A steroid shot helped for a few days.  Now on Previcox, which helps her sleep through the night.  (But a side effect of that, at least I think it's related, is that she developed sort-of hotspots on her front toes... so I have cut the dose in half to see if that helps the toes recover.)  And she still pees blood, and tries to pee 15 times after she empties her bladder.  There is usually a good-sized blood clot in the urine.  Vet said the bladder felt thickened, but regular in shape, leading him to think it probably was NOT cancer.  But we haven't done an ultrasound yet... and after reading messages here, I suspect it will turn out to be cancer.

I don't want to waste money doing more unproductive tests -- so what test(s) should we do that can definitively diagnose cancer or not?

Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can give us.

 

On 2/4/2005 Nannyno wrote:

I have a Sweet sweet sweet, ten year old Rhodesian Ridgeback named Diva. She is fighting the big fight right now, Tranitional cell carcinoma, in her bladder(4cm x5cm). She was diagnosed a month ago, and is asymtomatic except for bloody urine. She is in no apparent discomfort. I am giving her Piroxicam, an nsai, and have been for one month. Her regular Vet. insists it will see her through the major discomfort down the road...until she can no longer tolerate it. Without an operation, we want to shrink her tumor and slow it down, (irradicate would be BEST) with Graviola. Don't know how much to give a 75 pound girl. Does anyone out there have any experience with giving it to a dog? SO Gratefully Yours, Nannyno

 

well, ,mutley has been on peroxicam for 3 months and has been doing quite well, he hasnt had any accidents in the house until yesterday (1) but has lost some appetite, he is getting picky, and not eating alot, is it posibble the peroxicam is doing a nimber on his stomach? I dont want to take him off it, but not really sure what to do, he is guarding is food from Maisy ( our 5 year old yellow lab) but still not eating it. I am thinking this isnt good.'

any ideas?

 

Duane

Dear RRsighthound:

Sorry to hear about the trouble being had. I am in a similar predicament although I likely have had a different route arriving at this juncture.  My 15 1/2 yr keeshond has since last June lost about 1/4 of her weight & about 3 months ago had a crisis where I very nearly lost her.  Since then the diagnosis has flexed its way into a likely "liver disease" situation and her improvement since that time with corresponding treatment seems to bear out the diagnosis; improvement however is a pretty relative term as she is no where near the quality of life we have enjoyed for at least 14 years.  I am really working hard to try to regain that-- fingers crossed.  Anyway noticeable progress was being (and in some aspects still is) made until this latest curveball of bloody urine was thrown into the mix--what a terrible deal!  I put her on Clavamox(actually Augmentin 500/125 cut in half) 8 days ago and yesterday again took her to the vet as bloodiness still continuing and seemingly worse in some instances.  Her normal vet is on vacation until Monday (Arghh!) but as I needed to talk to someone I went ahead & saw a replacement vet.  He described the bladder in similar terms to yours except that the thickening he felt (which also caused her discomfort) was only in one area & the rest felt normal- ie. no stones & flexible.  We spun down a sample of the urine as he said it is common to find cast off cancerous cells if there was a tumor which is what his suspicions were leaning toward.  Here we end up in a similar spot- the outcome of the cell analysis of the centrifuged urine sample(which appeared terribly bloody) only produced a cell pellet similar in size to about half of the end of a mech. pencil (In qualitative terms really not a terribly significant blood loss- which is good and helps with my evaluation of urine on an ongoing basis) unfortunately or perhaps fortunately he didn't exactly find what he expected regarding the cast off cells.  There were some but few enough that he had to hunt around for them and those he did manage to find he couldn't definitively say were cancerous-they didn't meet the wierdo cancerous criteria- but neither could he say they were normal.  So, the diagnosis comes to what you have- probably bladder cancer (cruel on top of everyting else we are battling) and he wrote a script for Piroxicam and Misoprostol  with the same expectations as in other board messages.  As I wasn't overly satisfied with the definitiveness of the diagnosis he also let me know about the more expensive diagnostic tools with the most likely being ultrasound (not avail. at my clinic but avail. here in town at a specialty place to the tune of $400-$600).  The Piroxicam scares the hell out of me because of the liver disease and where I might(and I mean MIGHT) be willing to try it with a definite diagnosis I currently am left in a quandry of very little pleasure; I vowed some months ago that never again would NSAIDS be taking a crack at my pups liver.  So so far I am not going to give it though I have a script should I decide otherwise.  I am going to talk to her proper vet early this week & see what else can be gleaned.  I go to a clinic & have learned to be very participatory in the evaluation & treatment for both best treatment options(including alternative therapies) and for financial reasons.  I will post again with any more info & feel free to email me directly at

--Message edited by CancerCompass staff. For personal protection, email address removed. Consider private reply. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at http://www.cancercompass.com/common/guidelines.html--

.  Please keep me posted if you are able to better confirm your diagnosis as well.  The link for the Graviola is http://www.allvita.net/graviola.htm and here are a couple of more links with good info: http://www.vet.purdue.edu/pcop/CanineUrinaryBladderCancer.pd   http://www.dog-health-guide.org/dogbladderproblems.html;& http://www.raysahelian.com/graviola.html;   & http://searchwarp.com/swa105653.htm;      http://www.healthyheartht.info/graviola.htm;   http://www.rain-tree.com/reports/graviola-techreport.pdf; http://www.thepetcenter.com/gen/kf.html; http://home.ivillage.com/pets/symsolve/0,,jh5h,00.html.  It seems their may be some small concerns with the Graviola but not many compared with the Piroxicam so even if my dog doesn't have bladder cancer (which is what I suspect and am hoping for) it may be worth trying just to see;  if anyone has had experience with Graviola please reply to this as the tightrope I am walking with my buddy doesn't have room for errors right now & I really could use more information.             

I just found this thread and will post here as it seems the most appropriate place.

I have an 8 year old mixed breed neutered dog. He had bladder stones removed 9 months ago and all was well . As a follow-up, I would bring him in to the vet every 3 months for an urinalysis and every 6 months for x-rays.

All was well until this January when his urine showed "weird" cells. The vet sent the sample to a cytologist who came back with a diagnosis of "transitional cell carcinoma- probable"  I requested the V-BTA test after confirming there was no blood in his urine and that came back negative. That test is supposed to have a 95% accuracy rate when it comes to a negative though I did talk to a nice lady on here who had a negative and her dog had TCC

 So that is where my journey into the "land of conflicting answers" has begun. One test says cancer, one test says no cancer. One ultrasound shows no tumors. And, tomorrow we have an ultrasound scheduled with a specialist who can hopefully confirm that there are no tumors.

But will I rest easy? At this point I am not sure who or what to believe. And to say it is driving me crazy is an understatement. What is the gold standard for diagnosis? Has anyone been in a similar spot where the tests never really give a definitive answer and if so what did you do?  

Any help with my little man would be greatly appreciated. I have had a number of dogs in my life and all have been wonderful but once in a lifetime a special one comes along and this fellow is that special one for me.

Trish

 

On 1/16/2009 Steiffbearlvr wrote:

I just found this thread and will post here as it seems the most appropriate place.

I have an 8 year old mixed breed neutered dog. He had bladder stones removed 9 months ago and all was well . As a follow-up, I would bring him in to the vet every 3 months for an urinalysis and every 6 months for x-rays.

All was well until this January when his urine showed "weird" cells. The vet sent the sample to a cytologist who came back with a diagnosis of "transitional cell carcinoma- probable"  I requested the V-BTA test after confirming there was no blood in his urine and that came back negative. That test is supposed to have a 95% accuracy rate when it comes to a negative though I did talk to a nice lady on here who had a negative and her dog had TCC

 So that is where my journey into the "land of conflicting answers" has begun. One test says cancer, one test says no cancer. One ultrasound shows no tumors. And, tomorrow we have an ultrasound scheduled with a specialist who can hopefully confirm that there are no tumors.

But will I rest easy? At this point I am not sure who or what to believe. And to say it is driving me crazy is an understatement. What is the gold standard for diagnosis? Has anyone been in a similar spot where the tests never really give a definitive answer and if so what did you do?  

Any help with my little man would be greatly appreciated. I have had a number of dogs in my life and all have been wonderful but once in a lifetime a special one comes along and this fellow is that special one for me.

Trish

Hi Trish.  It has been several months since I lost my scottie to bladder cancer.  He was that once-in-lifetime dog for me. Anyway, I read your message & was reminded of the all the time we lost with wrong diagnoses.  If you can find a veterinary oncologist in your area, that's who should see your dog--at least once for the initial diagnosis & then the oncologist will usually be willing to do a phone consult with your local vet.  I finally took my JJ to Colorado State University Animal Cancer Center, & I can tell you that oncology vets who see several cases of canine bladder cancer every day know what they're looking for. They can do an ultrasound, CT, or scope that will give you the informed answer you need so you can make decisions.  As soon as the oncologist saw the cells in JJ's urinalysis, TCC was confirmed.  The "weird" cells had been there in every urinalysis for months, but general practice vets aren't oncologists, & they usually don't see this cancer enough to give a firm diagnosis until it's far advanced. My local vet thought the cells were from renal failure. He did a contrast xray that was negative, & an ultrasound that showed bladder wall thickening but was inconclusive.  I live in MT & it's an 8 hour drive to CSU, but the first trip to the veterinary oncologist gave me more answers than 15 visits to the two local vets we saw.  We had an answer right away & a plan of action when we left there.  I hope this helps you.  Good Luck.

Joy

Dear Trish:  I am sorry to hear about the conflict you are having diagnosing your "little man."  I just went through the same ordeal and disappointingly just yesterday evening (the day your post appeared) got a positive diagnosis for tcc in which I have pretty good confidence.  I researched the vBTA test heavily as an alternative to the ultrasound that the vet(not my normal vet) indicated was the next step to confirm his suspicion of tcc.  The ultrasound was out of my ability to provide pricewise so I was really scrambling.  The end result of vBTA research was that the test is notorious for both false positives & false negatives to such a degree that the lab used by my vet really doesn't recommend it and additionally the blood present in my (her name is Shiloh) stinker's pittle (even when it doesn't look like any blood is there as it only takes a trace) is contraindicated for the test.  So even though it is much more affordable I was unable to use it to confirm the "suspicions" of the vet.  Yesterday, after a pre-discussion on the phone with my regular vet we decided to again analyze her urine if we could get a bloody enough sample (we did) and do an x-ray of her abdomen to see if perhaps bladder stones might be the culprit.  The x-ray came back negative for stones but did show a significanly enlarged bladder (kidneys looked fine).  The urine cytology this time revealed "wierd" cells but this time the staining & morphology looked basically identical to the specimen reference photo for tcc.  Additionally, my vet went through my pup's rectum (she was not happy) and was able to palpate the bladder & bladder neck much more effectively than through her fur & skin.  He said that the neck & bladder wall felt distinctly thickened.  That evidence combined with my description of how the urine progessed through the day- her first pittle appears normal but as we get into evening hours the frequency & bloodiness increase dramatically- has me convinced that the diagnosis is sound.  What a terrible thing... I am still unwilling to do the piroxicam/misoprostol (apparently can use pepcid as well) route as a) her pooper is one thing that has been working very well and really is critically important to her comfort -piroxicam frequently has nasty side effects, and b) with her liver in any bit of a compromised state I have zero confidence with any NSAID being appropriate:  I am convinced that despite any assurances that those compounds take a hit on the liver every time they are used & unless you are in tip top shape should be avoided-(there is a long story behind my conviction re: NSAID's).  So today here I am trying to decide on an appropriate "alternative" treatment that may help & won't do any harm or significant discomfort.  I am not through thinking about the problem yet but I am stongly considering 3 methods currently with more research to be done.  The 3 are: 1) Cantron plus support therapy found on the website (cantron.com, see also  http://alternativecancer.us ); Graviola - I have too many links still (work in progess) to list here but will if requested; & 3) Budwig diet (cottage cheese & flax seed oil)   http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/pet-cancer-cure-testim http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/budwig-diet-protocol-t (more links if needed).  I hope your appointment today gives some sort of definitive diagnosis and further that all is well.  And despite the gravity of the circumstance I am pleased to have someone to share with.  Please let me know how things progress; I know it was helpful for me just to have confidence in whatever the diagnosis was so at least I know where to direct my energies.  Best wishes,  Doug