Progressive Wednesday

This treatment's not just “for the dogs–

Being married to a veterinarian who absolutely loves her job means that I get some of the most interesting “pillow talk– that one could imagine. I think it could only be more interesting if she were a CIA agent. I'm not outing her; she doesn't work for the CIA (at least, I don't think). Some of what I hear about when I pretend to understand what the H-E-double hockey sticks she's talking about, are the newest treatments being developed for humans that are already being used on animals.

Last week, she pointed this one out which I found on MSNBC.com:

Human volunteers (are) testing a vaccine for melanoma – ” a potentially fatal skin cancer that strikes 60,000 Americans a year.

The human results at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center are not in yet, but a few blocks away in New York at the Animal Medical Center, veterinarians heard about the vaccine and asked to try it in dogs.

What makes this study so intriguing (other than the fact that it is curing cancer) is that the vaccine was originally intended to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence of melanoma in patients that have already been treated for the skin cancer. But when the treatment was used on a dog that currently had the fatal disease, the dog:

Underwent complete disappearance of his tumor. Since then, more than 100 dogs have been treated– ¦ The vaccine works so well that the U.S. department of Agriculture is about to license it as a treatment of melanoma in dogs.

It'll take some time before it's deemed safe for regular treatment of human melanoma, but it's nice to know what's on the medical horizon. It's also nice to know that the newest acquisition of our family (pictured – right) will have a better chance of living a full and healthy life, and that his kind could help his partner in crime (left) do the same.