Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Weight change in dogs during lymphoma chemo linked to outcome
By Lee, Wei-Shan et al.·Published in Veterinary and comparative oncology·2021·Department and Graduate Institute of Veterinary Medicine·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Association between weight change during initial chemotherapy and clinical outcome in dogs with multicentric lymphoma.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
An 8-year-old Golden Retriever diagnosed with multicentric lymphoma underwent chemotherapy and was monitored for weight changes. The study found that dogs who gained more than 5% of their body weight during the first five weeks of treatment had better outcomes, living longer without disease progression compared to those who lost weight. Specifically, dogs that maintained or gained weight had a median progression-free survival of around 256 to 320 days, while those that lost weight had only 129 days. This suggests that keeping an eye on your dog's weight during treatment can be crucial for their prognosis.
People also search for: dog lymphoma treatment weight loss · Golden Retriever lymphoma survival · chemotherapy weight gain in dogs
Abstract
The majority of the known prognostic factors in dogs with lymphoma have been evaluated before treatment commences or at the time of diagnosis. Prognostic factors evaluated during the initial phase of treatment are less described but may provide important clinical information. In this retrospective study, 82 canine lymphoma patients were categorized according to the weight change between diagnosis and after 5 weeks of chemotherapy. Dogs that gained greater than 5% or lost greater than 5% of initial body weight were categorized as increased- or decreased-weight groups, respectively. Those in which weight changed less than 5% were categorized as the maintained-weight group. The median progression-free survival (PFS) in the increased-weight group, maintained-weight group and decreased-weight group was 226, 256 and 129 days, respectively. The decreased-weight group had significantly shorter PFS than the increased and maintained groups (P = .023, P = .003, respectively). The median survival time (ST) in the increased-weight group, maintained-weight group and decreased-weight group was 320, 339 and 222 days, respectively. There was no significant difference in ST among the three groups (P = .128). In Cox-regression results, weight change group and initial body weight were significant risk factors associated to PFS (P = .007, P = .001, respectively) while only patient's initial body weight was a significant risk factor to ST (P = .013). In conclusion, evaluation of initial body weight and weight changes over time can provide valuable information regarding PFS and ST in dogs with multicentric lymphoma.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32654343/