Jun 14, 2019

Can Stem Cells be Used in Patients with Cancer?

Cancer is a diagnosis no pet owner wants to hear.  Occasionally pet owners will contact us to ask if VetStem Cell Therapy can be used to treat or cure their pet’s cancer.  Unfortunately, VetStem cells cannot be used to treat cancer.  But what about pet’s who have an orthopedic condition that may benefit from stem cell therapy who also have cancer?

As a precaution, we monitor the occurrence of cancer in patients treated with VetStem Cell Therapy closely and have not seen a higher incidence than what is reported in patients of the same age group that were not treated with stem cells.  The literature supports that adult stem cells do not directly turn into cancer cells.  There is also literature regarding stem cell therapy in women who have had mastectomies which shows no higher incidence of recurrence of cancer.

VetStem takes a conservative approach when it comes to patients with cancer because there is still a lot that we don’t know about stem cells and how they work so we err on the side of safety.  We do not recommend stem cell therapy for patients with active or recent cancer.

However, as pet owners ourselves, we understand that in some cases, the potential benefits of stem cell therapy may outweigh the potential risk in patients with active or recent cancer and therefore a pet owner may elect to move forward with stem cell therapy.  This decision is usually reached after a consultation between your veterinarian and a VetStem veterinarian and requires pet owners to sign a special waiver. Some things to consider when making this decision are: age of your pet, severity of the cancer, other medical conditions, and your pet’s current quality of life. There is also an option for patients with cancer to only receive joint injections and not an intravenous injection.

If you have any questions about stem cell therapy, speak to your veterinarian or contact a VetStem representative.

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