For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug made specifically to treat cancer in dogs. The drug, which is made by Pfizer Animal Health, an arm of the giant pharmaceutical company, is called Palladia and is used to treat canine cutaneous mast cell tumors, which account for about one in five cases of skin tumors in dogs.
Although some mast cell tumors can be easily removed through surgery, other cases have been more difficult to treat, and the cancer can spread to other parts of a dog's body. Palladia kills tumor cells and cuts off the tumors' blood supply.
"Prior to this approval, veterinarians had to rely on human oncology drugs, without knowledge of how safe or effective they would be for dogs," Bernadette Dunham, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. "Today's approval offers dog owners, in consultation with their veterinarian, an option for treatment of their dog's cancer."
In clinical studies, Palladia caused about 60 percent of tumors in dogs to disappear, shrink or stop growing.
Like all drugs, there are side effects, which may include diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss and bloody stools.
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