The dog was cured of deadly cancer with a vaccine from its own tumor

Dogs are susceptible to cancer no less than people, reminds the Daily Mail. According to statistics, about half of all animals die from cancer, and dogs that are 10 years old are especially at risk.

Kelly, the greyhound living in Sydney, was about the same when the owner noticed bumps under her jaw. Veterinarians have diagnosed lymphoma, an aggressive and deadly cancer for dogs. Kelly underwent chemotherapy, but there was little hope of salvation. And yet the dog was rescued, and it is now alive and well. A course of experimental treatment developed by immunologists from the University of Sydney helped.

Kelly was the first on whom doctors tested the introduction of a vaccine, the material for which is the tumor cells of the patient himself. A tumor that is removed during a biopsy is either frozen or treated immediately. The sample is combined with a complex of substances called Advax, designed to increase the immunogenicity of vaccines, and injected into the animal. As practice has shown, this method is especially effective for mast cell tumors and lymphoma. The most promising results are in dogs that have already received chemotherapy. The latter method of treatment is very expensive and usually does not save the animal by itself, although it can prolong its life. The development of Sydney immunologists, in addition to being effective and safe, is also budgetary.

Doctors themselves consider it to be a form of immunotherapy, one of the most promising treatments for cancer in humans. Researchers from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago are working in a similar direction - they have developed a vaccine for humans, for which the patient's own tumor cells are used, which program the immune system to search for and attack cancer cells.

The results of the experiment are published in the journal Science Advances.