Question Details
Melanoma In A Dog
by mwalker - September 24, 2014    View Case Report
I am hoping to get a little advice about herbs and any other therapies for a patient of mine. Fida is a 13 year old FS mixed breed dog (street dog from India). She had a litter of puppies at 1.5 years of age. She was spayed when she got pregnant again and they intentionally left an ovary. She had another surgery several years later that removed the remaining ovary after having a number of false pregnancies.

I have been treating her for a few years. She used to vomit bile around 4 am every morning and occasionally would vomit kibble in the evenings. She was started on a fresh food diet, wobenzyme, probiotics, l-glutamine, vit b12 injections and Nux vomica (Nux vomica seemed to help the most). She tends to start itching without the wobenzyme and will have a relapse in GI symptoms if the owners feed her kibble if they are traveling.

For the last couple of years she has periodic cervical pain that is usually worse in the morning and responds well to acupuncuture, massage, warmth, traumeel, bosswellia, and vit B12.

In April 2014 she had a 2.1 cm, low grade (2-3 mitotic figures/hpf) malignant melanoma surgically removed from her right axilla. Thoracic Rads showed beginning mineralization of the bronchi, mild left atrial dilation, chronic collapse of C6/C7 disk space, and spondylosis of T13/L1 and L1/L2.

She had an episode of muscle spasm (back legs kicking out) about 2 weeks after the surgery.

Her tongue and pulse have varied over the years, used to be more slippery, now has some fingerlift with a little increased tone. Tongue is lavender in the center and pink along the edges (side). She has started dreaming more and now has a grossly serosanguinous discharge from one of her nipples and a small benign keratinized growth on one of her pinnae.

Her owners had been reluctant to start herbs, but are more interested now.

I am considering Jia Wei Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang or Bu Gan Tang but I'm not sure which is the best option (or if there is a better option or if modifications would be helpful to address the discharge from the nipple- no obvious mass in the mammary tissue)...we had originally discussed following up with oral neoplasene for the melanoma which I've never used...I would appreciate any advice. Thanks!!!
Replies
by naturevet
September 25, 2014
Hi there,

I haven't used oral neoplasene either, but maybe someone else will weigh in.

I like your idea of Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang Tang with San Leng and E Zhu added. It is one of the formulas I used for breast cancer in women, too, so use of it with this bloody nipple discharge is fine. I have seen XFZYT do a good job as part of the protocol for melanomas in the past. We also commonly add in bi-weekly mega-doses of vitamin A and D; and IP 6

You can also try to apply the herb topically to the nipple and melanoma itself using DMSO gel as a base.

Hopefully you'll see some response. If you do, but it's not complete, consider surgical debulking, to reduce the tumor burden the herbs have to fight against.

Hope that helps...fingers crossed. We've had some melanoma cases go for years with a protocol like the above.

Steve
by mwalker
September 28, 2014
Thank you for your quick response!
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