Feline Vaccine Associated Sarcoma

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Jenny and Sue

Jenny and Sue

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You may already know that my cat may have VAS. I found a large lump on Nov. 18 on her scruff. She had surgery on Dec. 2. Still waiting on biopsy. I am trying to research radiation options in case she needs it so I am prepared ahead of time to start right away.

I have heard that it costs several thousand dollars. Does anyone know if that is accurate? I think the University of Cincinnati has a veterinary radiology center at the medical school.

I know Ohio State University has a radiology/oncology center at the OSU vet hospital. I wonder if it would be cheaper there. I looked up certified radiologist/oncologists on http://www.acvr.org/ . The closest ones are in Columbus.

Chicken's surgery was done by a board certified surgeon, BUT there is no oncologist there. Their oncologist left and the new one won't start until January... So, if Chicken needs radiation, should I risk having it done there without an oncologist? They said the surgeons do radiation therapy.

Also, if it comes back as VAS, but her margins are clean, should I still get the radiation to lessen the chances of recurrence?

If you have any experience or thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing them. I do realize that I am putting the cart before the horse, but I would rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.

By the way, she is recovering very well! Boy, cats sure are resilient!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks,
Jenny
 
Hi Jenny,

My sister had a cat die from feline vaccine associated sarcoma. It was many years ago, but she did have radiation treatment at Colorado State University. I'll ask her if she'll write out her experience, but I do know the radiation was very, very hard on her kitty and she said that had she known, she wouldn't do it again.

CSU does a new type of radiation called "stereotactic radiation surgery" - it's a very highly targeted radiation so there are few side effects. My Boo had her pituitary tumor zapped and it worked wonders. I think CSU is still the only vet hospital with this machine and I don't know if they use it for this type of tumor, but it might be worth checking out. At the very least, I bet somebody there would talk to you or your vet. Additionally, I know they were collecting information about these sarcomas.

I'll post again if my sister writes anything.

Heather
 
PS - There is a major difference in number of treatments with SRS vs regular radiation. For my cat's tumor, regular radiation would have been 12 - 17 treatments, over about a 1 month period. The SRS entailed 4 treatments over a one-week period. Cost was very similar, even when I added in my travel costs (about $5000 total).

I know my sister's cat had to stay in Colorado for the entire month of treatments.
 
Jenny, I saw that you joined the yahoo VAS group and I am glad. I think the info you get there will be the most accurate. I don't really post there anymore because it is too hard for me.
IfI could have a redo with Remi I would have been more aggressive with his treatment. At Remi's onset of VAS I did not have the info from the VAS group. He did not have clean margins from his first sugery as the vet obviously didn't follow protocol/ or did not suspect VAS. Of course, I had never even heard of it or been warned of it when getting vaccinations. Anyway, if I had known radiation was an optin then I probably would have opted for it since he was in great health otherwise. I am not saying that would have been the end of his VAS recurrences but it would have been nice to know I did everything.
Good luck on your journey with Chicken. Again, I really hope when the pathology reports get back it is not VAS and if it is that they got clean margins.
 
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