Vaccine to prevent cancer in dogs in trial stages in Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A vaccine to extend the life of man's best friend targets its number one predator. Cancer kills more senior dogs than anything else. Now, the university of Wisconsin at Madison is taking part in what is the largest clinical trial to date on canine cancer. And so far, it's showing positive results.
These are difficult days for dogs and emotional ones for their owners.
"Our pets develop cancer at a high rate, and we outlive our pets so if you have enough pets over time, you're going to have one that unfortunately develops cancer," said Dr. David Vail, University of Wisconsin Madison professor and Barbara A. Suran Chairperson of Comparative Oncology.
The competent staff at UW veterinary care in Madison treats some 48-hundred cases a year of newly diagnosed cancer.
"Based on a patient's CT scan that shows where the tumor is, she is going to contour that patient with computer software to tell the radiation machine where to treat and what normal tissues to avoid," said Dr. Vail.
This is where dogs like Pipi go for treatment after a cancer diagnosis.
Scientists can only hope all of this will someday be unnecessary. A new canine cancer vaccine aims to target cancer cells before they even show up.
"It essentially puts up wanted posters for that virus so that your immune system will recognize it when it tries to infect you and kill it," said Dr. Vail.
It's the first prophylactic anti-cancer vaccine in the history of veterinarian medicine.
"It's very exciting. I mean it's the reason I got into being a specialized veterinarian and cancer researcher in the first place," said Dr. Vail.
Three locations are taking part in the VACCS trial which stands for vaccination against canine cancer study, Colorado State University, the university of California at Davis and here at UW Madison.
"Most of the anti-cancer vaccines that are currently under investigation involve taking the patient's tumor after they've developed the tumor and looking at it for abnormal proteins and then creating a vaccine that's very expensive and very individual, so you have to make it for that patient. This vaccine, if it will work, is shelve ready, or you take it off the shelf, it doesn't matter what tumor type that patient has or the individual, the vaccine is already ready to go and so you just vaccinate the patient," said Dr. Vail.
The five-year study, now in its fifth year, got underway in 2019.
"We advertised this trial. Within days we had hundreds of phone calls. People that wanted to enter their companions in this clinical trial," said Dr. Vail.
Some 950 dogs were screened, 800 qualified from 50 different breeds, because they had no prior cancer. Pavlov's one of the 800.
"He's just a joy to have around. If somebody is down or if somebody is having kind of a bad time, he will like be drawn to them and he'll literally give you this look like hey, how are you doing today?" said Bruce Witzenburg, Pavlov's human master.
Bruce and his wife Colleen had some reservations, but say, it's been rather easy.
"Just knowing if something were to go wrong, we're getting top notch veterinarian care in the state is a load off your mind. Part of the reason we signed up for this because we thought this is part of being in science is being willing to be a volunteer for some of these things," said Colleen Witzenburg.
The study involved a series of shots.
"It involves initially three vaccinations that are spread out every two weeks. So they get a vaccine, two weeks later the second, two weeks later the third vaccine and then they get boosters. They come in every six months for the duration of the five years," said Dr. Vail.
Patients either got the cancer vaccine, or a placebo. They don't know which. Neither does Dr. Vail.
"I can't tell you which one received the true vaccine versus the placebo vaccine. They look the same. And that's to blind me, so I can't subconsciously do something to bias the result," said Dr. Vail.
A safety advisory board's been analyzing the data to determine any side effects, which Dr.. Vail says have been minimal to date.
"Fever for perhaps a few hours, maybe a flu like symptom, kind of tiredness, some pain at the local site of vaccination - nothing beyond that," said Dr. Vail.
Pavlov's felt it…
"He was a little tired afterwards maybe but nothing else," said Colleen Witzenburg.
Noticeably a little slower on his usual routine, walking alongside his brother Blalock, on the disc golf course.
"It was always my job to take them on the walk. It's kind of because of these guys that I got into disc golf," said Bruce Witzenburg.
It's unclear whether Pavlov's in the placebo or the vaccine group, but either way his family is hoping he'll be around to play disc golf for years to come.
"On the positive side, if he doesn't get cancer because of this, that's just amazing right?" said Colleen Witzenburg.
And Dr. Vail says if the study's a success, it could have deeper implications, possibly even being used for studies on cancer in humans.
"The hope is certainly that if we develop something that works in dogs to prevent cancer or decrease the incidence of cancer, that will translate into people," said Dr. Vail.
A separate study a few years ago specifically looked at bone cancer in dogs.
"And that's important because companion dogs are very important in that process because it's a rare disease in kids. There are about 800 kids a year that develop bone cancer. There's about 20,000 dogs a year in North America that develop bone cancer so we can investigate new diagnostics and new treatments for bone cancer much quicker than on the human side. We really don't think of our companion dogs and cats as models for human disease, we think of them as a parallel patient population that we can investigate new treatments," said Dr. Vail.
Whatever the VACCS trial ultimately shows, the Witzenburgs smile as they think about how their Pavlov's making a difference.
"We're really excited and proud to be a part of it. And especially given Pavlov's namesake. We're clearly scientists so we thought hey this will be great," said Colleen Witzenburg.