Drugs and sophisticated medical procedures developed for humans are being adapted by veterinarians to help pets.
By SUSAN ASCHOFF
Published June 10, 2003
[Times photos: John Pendygraft]
Nicki, a canine patient about to have a polyp surgically removed, is prepped by Karen Wiley, left, a certified veterinary technician at Florida Veterinary Specialists.
Dr. Keeley McNeal, left, and surgery tech Tim Porter get Baby ready for surgery. The dog, hit by a car, has had three corrective surgeries.
After Zeus is sedated, oncology tech Bobbi Wolfgram, left, and extern Amy Thompson position him for the radiation treatment on a linear accelerator.
Cari Sadler, receptionist at Florida Veterinary Specialists, gets a grateful kiss from Kelli Boy during a post-operative check. The Border collie-Australian shepherd mix had surgery to correct a congenitally deformed hip.
In the veterinary hospital’s oncology ward, Sweetie, left, looks up at Zeus, who is being sedated for his radiation treatment. Sweetie and Zeus are cancer patients.
A skunk named Kahlua is positioned for a CAT scan of the head by Dr. Valerie Sadler, a radiologist at Florida Veterinary Specialists in Tampa. "Anything they can do for humans, we can do for animals," she says.
TAMPA - In television ads, grandparents romp around the ball diamond with a grandson thanks to the arthritis relief provided by a new generation of drugs such as Celebrex and Vioxx.
Now marketers are airing ads starring a dog.
A yellow lab, unable to climb a flight of stairs, later gallops across the lawn chasing a ball after being given virtually the same pill as those peppy seniors.
The four-legged pitchman is the latest example of how medicine for humans is increasingly being adapted for their pets. From arthritis tablets to laser surgery, chemotherapy to organ transplants, treatments once reserved for people and considered prohibitively expensive for animals are being given to dogs, cats, horses, parrots and other "companion animals."
The masters have become the lab rats for their pets.
Veterinary medicine has long trailed medical care for humans - the costs of developing and testing a new drug, for example, are so high that very few target ailments in animals, says Dr. Colin Burrows, chairman of the small animal department at University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine.
Over the past decade, though, pet owners have proved their willingness to pay.
Spending on pets in the United States is projected to increase nearly 10 percent this year, to $31-billion. Pain control spending alone has jumped 275 percent in six years, topping $150-million, report pharmaceutical companies chasing the burgeoning market.
The Labrador in the TV ad got his very own arthritis medication. This spring, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug called Deramaxx for osteoarthritis pain and inflammation in dogs. Drugmaker Novartis says it is the first pill for dogs in the new coxib class of drugs for humans.
The dogs' version is beef-flavored and chewable.
"There's been a revolution, particularly in pain management," says Burrows. "Deramaxx got a license because there's a whole bunch of old dogs out there with arthritis."
And a bunch of dog owners who want Fido to feel better.
A survey by the American Animal Hospital Association found that a majority of pet owners "will go to great lengths" to improve the quality of their pet's life, even if only for a short period of time.
Veterinary medicine is expanding to meet the demand. Animal hospitals add oncology wings for outpatient chemotherapy. Specialists perform hip replacements mirroring those done on people. Laser surgery neuters and declaws. Ultrasound, administered after a patch of fur is shaved, delineates stomachs and digestive tracts.
At select veterinary facilities across the country the same MRI machine found in hospitals takes pictures of cats and dogs and, last month in Tampa, a manatee.
Only a fraction of vet bills are paid with pet insurance. Owners pay out of pocket for services, from a $300 ultrasound to an $8,000 kidney transplant at one of the handful of universities in the United States that performs such surgery.
Terry Buckley of Tampa spent $4,400 for a hip replacement for Kelli Boy, a Border Collie-Australian Shepherd born with a detached hip. Buckley says Kelli Boy has insurance coverage but reimbursement was denied - the congenital defect was ruled a pre-existing condition.
"Dogs are just as much a part of your family as your spouse and your children," Buckley says.
Scheduled to travel to the college in Gainesville last month for the operation, Kelli Boy instead went to Florida Veterinary Specialists in Tampa. There a surgeon visiting from Switzerland used six titanium screws to correct the deformity that would have eventually made Kelli Boy lame.
"There's an expectation, brought about by education of the public, that we can do pretty much anything on animals that we can on humans," says Burrows.
"Kelli was on his feet within minutes of surgery," says Buckley. "This is the most amazing surgery I've ever seen."
Dr. Neil Shaw, owner of Florida Veterinary Specialists, said his hospital would not have prospered 15 years ago - there was not enough demand for vet specialties. Today the 3-year-old, 11,575-square-foot complex he's built has three surgical suites, its own lab, and a linear accelerator inside thick concrete walls to zap cancers with radiation.
Many of its approximately 30 vets are specialists, from dermatology to orthopedics.
Perhaps what has changed is "the emotional bond between people and their pets," Shaw says.
"The folks who bring their pets here are not necessarily the wealthy people. It's people who have a strong emotional commitment to their pet. The pets provide unconditional acceptance."
In addition to surgical and screening advances, many of the more than 300 drugs available to pets can trace their roots to human drugs.
"Ninety percent of what we do," says Shaw, "is from the human side."
At UF College of Veterinary Medicine, a poodle named Benji underwent a successful kidney transplant in 2002, making the school only the second institution in the nation to perform the procedure in a clinical patient. Benji's mother, Snowstar, was the donor.
The University of California-Davis pioneered the procedure in the 1980s. But kidney transplants in dogs tapered off because of the high incidence of organ rejection. Not until the late 1990s, when veterinarians discovered a new form of cyclosporine, an anti-rejection drug used in transplants on humans, did transplants on dogs become truly viable.
In Gainesville, a tiger cub mauled by another tiger failed to heal properly, so the burn team at Shands hospital at UF stepped in. A treatment for humans using negative pressure therapy, which involves a tight bandage and a pump to suction fluid from wounds, proved successful and made the cub the first animal in the nation to get the human cure.
Shaw says one dog owner, told a daily arthritis pill could ease his three-legged friend's pain but cost $2 apiece, did not hesitate. If the prescription had been for him, he told Shaw, he'd have scouted out drug stores and generics to find the lowest price.
