The medication “Vincristine” is used in the treatment of malignant tumors and is a herbal preparation. It can be used not only for the treatment of cancer in humans, but also in animals, in particular in cats and dogs.
Pharmacological properties
According to the instructions, "Vincristine" is an alkaloid of pink periwinkle, represents the pharmacological category of cytostatic agents. The main active substance binds to the tubulin protein and contributes to the disruption of the microtubular cell apparatus and the rupture of the mitotic spindle. The drug is able to suppress mitosis in metaphase. It also interferes with the processes of glutamate metabolism and the possible production of nucleic acid, and has an immunosuppressive effect.
Cautious introduction
Intrathecal administration of this medication is prohibited. When administered, care should be taken to prevent extravasation. The dosage of the drug "Vincristine" for dogs is selected individually in each case.
Negative reactions
Negative reactions can occur from the nervous system of animals, the digestive tract, urinary, respiratory, endocrine, hematopoietic systems.
Local side effects of Vincristine for dogs: hair loss, azoospermia, phlebitis, necrosis when the drug enters the skin.
In what cases is the drug used? We will talk about this later.
According to the instructions, “Vincristine” is used in veterinary medicine in the treatment of the following malignant neoplasms in animals.
Superficial oncological process in the bladder
In such a case, surgical removal of the pathological formation and preventive chemotherapy (intravesical administration of chemical medications) are used. In this scheme, the drug "Vincristine" or its analogues - "Mitomycin", "Doxorubicin", "Thiotela" is used. In addition, combined chemotherapy (chemoradiation) is prescribed, which is most effective in the first two stages of the development of the disease and exclusively in combination with radiation.
Mammary cancer
In this case, the therapy is carried out with a combination of medications with the use of Doxorubicin, Cyclophosphamide and Vincristine, but this is extremely dangerous for the animal and rarely leads to recovery. With such an oncological process, the best results are shown by the combination of Vincristine and Adriamycin preparations. Thus, in 50% of sick cats, a slight remission can be achieved or the progression of a malignant tumor can be prolonged.
Venereal sarcoma in dogs
With this malignant tumor, the use of the drug "Vincristine" is most appropriate. The medication shows fairly good results of therapy, and with the help of combined treatment with modulators of antitumor activity of cytostatics, you can bring the effectiveness of this medication to 100 percent.
Thus, the drug "Vincristine" for dogs in clinical veterinary medicine is used in most cases in the treatment of venereal transmissible sarcoma.
Use of the drug for sarcoma in dogs
A venereal transmissible sarcoma of a dog (Sticker tumor) is a malignant transmissible pathology of the genitals in dogs that is sexually transmitted.
The main symptom of this disease is spotting from the genital tract of the animal, which can be confused with the onset of estrus. In addition, there is also a lesion of the mucous membranes of the mouth and nose. A skin form of the pathological process is known when a pronounced skin lesion develops. When the dog’s nasal cavity is affected, a characteristic sign of the disease is sneezing and bloody mucus from the nose. In some cases, an oncological tumor in the nasopharynx can cause difficulty in breathing.
With transmissible sarcoma, conservative and surgical treatment is used, which consists in removing the neoplasm within healthy tissues. If even a minimal number of malignant tumor cells are left on the mucous membrane, relapse may develop (re-growth of the tumor). So the operational method of therapy does not guarantee the dog's recovery. The best option is a combination of conservative and surgical methods of treatment.
When conservative treatment is carried out, the combination of anticancer drugs (chemotherapy) with the use of Vincristine according to the instructions is most often used. A significant drawback of this treatment is the increased toxicity of pharmacological preparations.
Using the agent simultaneously with antitumor activity modulators (Sarkolitin) significantly increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy and significantly reduces the number of courses. In addition, the positive effect of the drug is considered to be that it significantly reduces the risk of any side effects associated with chemotherapy.
In accordance with the instructions for use with Vincristine, until complete recovery is required, as a rule, from 3 to 8 therapeutic courses, depending on the characteristics of the disease and the condition of the animal. Throughout the entire course of treatment, it is recommended to monitor the condition of the dog. Before each course, a blood test is performed, and a specialist assesses the condition of her body. If it does not allow the next course of treatment, then it is postponed until the veterinarian decides to continue chemotherapy. They stop treatment procedures with the complete disappearance of the malignant tumor. To make sure that it disappears, you must take a control biopsy or conduct an additional course of treatment with chemotherapy.
What else can you learn from the instructions for use for Vincristine for dogs?
Features of chemotherapy in animals
Chemotherapy is a method of treating malignant tumors, consisting in the use of special medications (cytostatics), which have the ability to slow down the growth of tumor cells and prevent the subsequent spread of the malignant process throughout the body. In animals (dogs and cats), such treatment is carried out using the medication "Vincristine". Instructions for the drug should be strictly observed.
Chemotherapy is carried out in most cases at the initial stages of the oncological process or in a number of pathologies, such as lymphosarcoma, as the main therapeutic technique. Most often, this disease is subjected to chemotherapy, as well as a variety of soft tissue sarcomas in animals, advanced stage breast cancer and others.
Instructions for use "Vincristine" for animals
Chemotherapy is considered a method that should not be taken as a panacea. Since not all tumor malignant processes are sensitive to such therapy, the spectrum of such diseases is extremely limited. And in animals, it is more limited than in humans.
Patients undergoing chemotherapy undergo high-dose treatment courses, which are fraught with serious complications requiring inpatient stay and associated with immunosuppression, when patients cannot come into contact with the environment and they need a special room with isolation. For animals, this is not always possible. The range of diseases in cats and dogs and the chemotherapeutic drugs used in their treatment is several times smaller than in humans. In addition, there are significant physiological differences between them and humans. Consequently, the treatment regimens with the Vincristine medication also have their own characteristics. As a rule, a veterinarian prescribes such therapy that will correspond to the variety of a specific oncological pathology in a particular animal.
The dosage of "Vincristine" for dogs in mono mode is 0.5-0.7 mg / m 2 , for 20 kg (0.74 m 2 ) it is 0.3 - 0.5 mg.
Contraindications for use
It must be understood that chemotherapeutic measures for animals using the drug "Vincristine" are prescribed depending on the stage of the pathological process, taking into account the clinical condition of the sick animal. The functionality of excretion organs (kidneys, liver) and hematological parameters are also evaluated. Thus, each case is examined by a veterinarian individually, based on the history and condition of the dog or cat.
Is chemotherapy possible at home?
This method of treatment with the drug "Vincristine" in animals involves observation in a clinical setting by a veterinarian. Such an animal needs to monitor the condition throughout life or the entire pathological process. For different regimens and malignant tumors, the likelihood of developing concomitant complications varies from 20 to 70%, but in addition, there is a need to change therapeutic regimens depending on the result. For timely and competent assistance to an animal, in some cases a whole team of specialists and the latest equipment are required, although in the early stages of the development of the disease, chemotherapy with a drug can be carried out at home under the supervision of the owners of the animal.
The result of chemotherapy with the drug
When treating cancer in a dog or cat, the main emphasis is not always on increasing life expectancy. In most cases, we are talking about normalizing its quality. That is, a similar therapeutic technique in animals is aimed not only at prolonging life in numerical terms, but more at ensuring the most comfortable and satisfactory quality of health and life for him.
Often there are situations when an animal with an oncological disease has concomitant diseases in the form of chronic heart, kidney, or liver failure. Accordingly, in some cases, chemotherapy may not be an appropriate risky therapeutic measure or may involve a variety of disorders that subsequently require serious treatment. Chemotherapy with the drug Vincristine is not a utilitarian technique for treating all oncological problems in dogs and cats.
Whether this technique leads to recovery is a rhetorical question. It does not guarantee a 100% favorable result in each animal. There are times when the result exceeds all the expectations of veterinarians and owners, and sometimes vice versa. The effectiveness of the drug can vary from very good to poor. That is, everything is relative, since in a number of malignant diseases the stabilization of the pathological process is already considered an excellent result.
Complications
According to the instructions for Vincristine for dogs and cats, treatment in some cases is associated with a certain percentage of complications. However, with the timely reaction of the doctor or the owner of the animal, they very rarely lead to death. The doctor can change, alternate and even terminate chemotherapy courses. This cannot be discussed as a standard, since too many nuances must be taken into account by the veterinarian in each particular case.
Vincristine Reviews for Dogs and Cats
There are very limited reviews on the use of this pharmacological agent in animals suffering from cancer. This is due to the fact that such pathologies in cats and dogs are a rather rare occurrence and many owners of such animals prefer either to euthanize a pet in order to avoid its suffering, or are inattentive to this problem. Nevertheless, the reviews describe this drug as highly effective, and in most cases it helped in the fight against malignant tumors in dogs and cats, especially in the early stages of their development.
We reviewed the instructions for use with Vincristine for cats and dogs.