Chemo Warrior Titch - Nasal and Oral Lymphoma - Treendale Vet Medical Centre

Chemo Warrior Titch – Nasal and Oral Lymphoma

The Diagnosis

Titch came to us in a terrible state. He was bleeding constantly from his nose. He was sneezing continuously. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t smell his food. He was losing weight. Things were getting bad.

Nasal biopsies showed lymphoma. The cancer was invading his nose, his sinuses and his mouth. Things were so bad for Titch that his mum had to make some hard decisions. It was either time for chemotherapy or it was time to end the suffering for Titch.

Titch had cancer staging to see if the cancer had spread beyond the obvious problems in his mouth and nose. X- rays of the skull showed extensive invasion of the cancer into the sinuses and nasal passages.

The good news for Titch was his blood tests were normal, his X-rays only showed cancer in his nose where we knew it was already and ultrasound of his organs, intestines and abdominal lymph nodes did not show any evidence the cancer had spread.

The Panacea

The response to chemotherapy for Feline Lymphoma patients is less predictable in cats than it is in dogs so giving a prognosis is always a little tricky.

Before starting chemotherapy for lymphoma in cats it is important to rule out Feline Leukaemia. The good news for Titch is that he was FeLV negative. That gave us the opportunity to offer chemotherapy to Titch.

His mum was delighted and desperate to give it a try. There are different chemotherapy protocols for Feline lymphoma. They all work to varying degrees but have different survival rates. We recommend the CHOP protocol that is a 24 week chemotherapy regime using a multi agent chemotherapy protocol.

Titch’s mum elected a single agent protocol that can still generate fantastic results and it is much simpler, less expensive and less stressful to the patient. Titch has responded very well in the initial stages of his treatment.

The Remissions

After his first chemotherapy treatment there was immediate improvement. Titch stopped bleeding from the nose and the sneezing settled down. Titch was able to eat better and seemed much happier.

After only his second chemotherapy treatment there was no longer any visible signs of cancer. Titch was brighter and happier and was eating well again. Titch is doing extremely well.