Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Half-body radiation with chemo delays lymphoma return in dogs
By Y. Lai et al.·Published in Veterinary and Comparative Oncology·2025·View original on Semantic Scholar →
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Original publication title: Half‐Body Radiation Therapy Results in a Prolonged Progression‐Free Interval in Canine High‐Grade Lymphoma After First Remission
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with high-grade lymphoma received a combination of chemotherapy and half-body radiation therapy (HBI) after their initial treatment. The dogs that had HBI experienced a much longer time without their cancer worsening, averaging about 1143 days, compared to just 316 days for those who only had chemotherapy. Additionally, the overall survival time was significantly better for the HBI group, lasting around 1924 days versus 566 days for the chemotherapy-only group. This suggests that adding HBI after chemotherapy can help dogs with lymphoma live longer and delay cancer recurrence.
People also search for: dog lymphoma treatment · half-body radiation for dogs · chemotherapy for dog cancer · dog cancer survival rates
Abstract
ABSTRACT An optimal protocol of adding wide‐field irradiation to multi‐agent chemotherapy for dogs with lymphoma has not been established. The aim of this retrospective case–control study was to evaluate the efficacy of a protocol combining chemotherapy and half‐body irradiation (HBI) for dogs with high‐grade lymphoma. Dogs in the treatment group received cranial HBI 2 weeks after completing the second cycle of the multi‐agent chemotherapy protocol. The radiation therapy protocol consisted of 4 Gy/fraction once per day for 2 consecutive days for the cranial half body, followed by the same protocol for the caudal half 2 weeks later. The control group only received multi‐agent chemotherapy. All patients were required to have cytological confirmation of high‐grade lymphoma and achieve complete remission after two cycles of multi‐agent chemotherapy. Fourteen patients receiving HBI and 11 patients in the control group were included. The median progression‐free interval (PFI) in the HBI group (1143 days) was significantly longer than that in the control group (316 days, p = 0.004). In the HBI group, dogs with T cell lymphoma had statistically shorter PFI (292 days) than dogs with B cell lymphoma (2127 days, p = 0.0013). The median survival time in the HBI group (1924 days) was significantly longer than that in the chemotherapy‐only group (566 days, p = 0.0077). The predictive factors for longer PFI and ST were found in the patients who received HBI and chemotherapy (p = 0.0062 and 0.0252, respectively). For chemotherapy‐responding patients that completed a multi‐agent protocol, HBI significantly prolonged the time to tumour relapse compared with the chemotherapy‐only group.
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Search related cases →Original publication on Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40088118