On 6/26/2008
Elaine and many paws wrote:
I have just been on the web-site and have read your story about your Scottie JJ.
Last week, Toto my eldest scottie girl at 10yr 3mths, was diagnosed with TCC. We will be starting treatment to-morrow (Friday 27.6.08) which will be Mitoxantrone and Piroxicam. We will keep you up-dated with progress.
How is JJ.
Hi. I just now checked back on this post--I hope the treatments are helping Toto. My JJ is doing well after a setback. The mitoxantrone & piroxicam did wonders for him. However, after his 4th chemo session the weather was so nice I let him spend a lot more time outside, instead of keeping him inside with a diaper on like we'd done before. I didn't notice he was licking himself, & the mitoxantrone comes out in the pee for a day or two after treatment & his stomach was irritated by the chemo drug in his urine that he ingested. By the time my husband noticed it & pointed it out to me, the damage was done. Because of the stomach irritation, I had to stop giving him piroxicam & then slowly start it at a lower dosage only every other day. On the next ultrasound 4 weeks later, the cancer had grown 20% & spread to his prostate. So when your Toto has the chemo, make sure she's not able to lick at herself for at least a couple days afterward. It seems to me that the mitoxantrone worked miracles as long as it was in combination with the piroxicam....as soon as I had to back off on the piroxicam, the cancer started growing again. June 3rd JJ became blocked & couldn't pee, & my local vet put in a catheter & I took JJ to CSU. That's when they did the ultrasound that showed the cancer started growing again & spread to the prostate. However, it had not spread to the lymphs or anywhere else outside the urinary tract. So I made the decision to have them put in a urethral stent. There was no surgery;just a catheter guided procedure. Immediately JJ was able to pee normally & he's been having no trouble at all peeing since then. We switched to doxorubicin for chemo & had the chemo done the day after the stent placement. While the stent was an easy procedure that helped him greatly, the chemo with the doxorubicin made JJ completely stop eating for 3 days & after that he acted like his stomach hurt when he did eat (for about another 4 days.) It was very rough on him, but he was completely over it after about a week. Now his bladder is emptying normally & his kidney levels are back down to acceptable levels. JJ's ureters were becoming partially blocked with tcc which caused elevated kidney levels of bun & creatinine. The doxorubicin chemo cleared the cancer from the ureters & the kidneys are working ok now. He is back on the full dose of piroxicam with daily pepcid, & we're just staying with that for now with occasional course of antibiotics when there's infection. I doubt that we'll do doxorubicin again because it was so rough on him, but it did appear to work against the cancer. They said they could do a lower dose & give anti-nausea medication if we do chemo again, but if we did chemo again I think I'd go back to the mitoxantrone because he had no side effects from it. CSU has one female dog with tcc that's been on mitoxantrone & piroxicam intermittently for over 2 years now. So, I think your decision to go with the mitoxantrone & piroxicam makes sense. If CSU had been doing stent placements sooner, that's one thing I would have done a lot earlier. I can't believe how much it helped him & he doesn't go around straining all the time (only strains when he has a uti.) Otherwise, he's acting normally & playing with toys & chasing squirrels & eating OK (with an occasional cheeseburger). I know it's still terminal cancer & the prostate involvement has probably shortened his time, but I'm glad I didn't euthanize him when he got blocked over a month ago.
Let me know how things are going with Toto.
Joy & JJ.