Hospital Services - Donaldson-Atwood Cancer Clinic

The Donaldson-Atwood Cancer Clinic (DACC) is the veterinary oncology referral center of The Animal Medical Center (The AMC). The DACC has over 4000 patient visits annually and provides a consultation service to the staff of the Bobst Hospital of The AMC. Pets with cancer may be referred to the DACC by their primary care veterinarian or by another veterinary specialist at The AMC, or be brought directly to AMC for consultation with one of the veterinarians at the DACC. The staff of the DACC serves as a resource for veterinarians needing further information about the behavior of different types of tumors and their response to treatment.

The DACC has three major goals:
1) To provide state-of-the-art comprehensive cancer care
2) Provide excellent training for interns, residents and visiting professionals
3) Perform clinically relevant state-of-the-art cancer investigations

STATE-OF-THE-ART COMPREHENSIVE VETERINARY CANCER CARE

The quality of care provided to patients with cancer is of the highest level due to the team approach employed within the DACC and The AMC. The DACC is comprised of five staff members Dr. Philip Bergman, Dr. Nicole Leibman, Dr. Maria Camps and Dr. Ann Hohenhaus, plus rotating residents and interns, as well as a team of support staff including technicians such as Shawn Takada, Rosemary Calderon and Yoshi Kobayashi, and animal handlers such as Karen Fudge and Ursula Sakaski

TRAINING

The DACC is staffed by veterinarians whose primary interest is the diagnosis and treatment of pets with cancer. Staff Oncologists are veterinarians who are Board-Certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM), a specialty of oncology. After their undergraduate education, they complete four years of training to receive their Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. A one-year internship is a prerequisite to a 2-3 year residency in Oncology. Staff oncologists have also conducted a minimum of one clinical research project and published a minimum of one paper in the field of Oncology. After their course of training, these veterinarians take three days of examinations to become Board-Certified in Oncology by the ACVIM.

The DACC provides a three-year residency training program for veterinarians wishing to become certified in Medical Oncology. In addition, veterinarians from the internship program of The AMC as well as residents in other specialties such as Surgery and Internal Medicine also rotate through the DACC as part of their training program.

TREATMENT

The DACC offers a full range of Oncology treatment options and is the only facility in the tri-state area to provide on-site comprehensive cancer care for pets. Chemotherapy is the most commonly used modality; however, surgery, radiation and/or immunotherapy are employed when appropriate for the specific case. Most chemotherapy drugs have not been specifically developed for use in animals, so Veterinary Oncologists employ the same drugs used by human Oncologists. Dogs and cats tolerate chemotherapy remarkably better than their human counterparts; in fact, most owners think their pets feel better when undergoing chemotherapy, probably because the negative effects of the tumor on the body are being controlled. This is the chemotherapy information/consent sheet used at the DACC containing more detailed information about the benefits and side effects of chemotherapy.

LYMPHOMA

The most common cancer treated by the oncologists at the DACC is lymphoma. Lymphoma is cancer of the lymph system. The mainstay of treatment for this disease is chemotherapy, although radiation therapy and/or surgery are sometimes used. One of the most widely used chemotherapy protocols for the treatment of lymphoma in dogs and cats was developed and tested at the DACC. This protocol has been made available to all veterinarians through its publication in internationally recognized veterinary medical textbooks, thus improving treatment of dogs and cats with lymphoma worldwide. Ferrets also suffer from lymphoma; working with the specialists of the Bobst Hospital's Avian and Exotic Pet Medicine, the DACC staff have helped to successfully administer chemotherapy to ferrets and other exotic species.

RADIATION

For more information about radiation therapy, click here

STATE-OF-THE-ART INVESTIGATIONS

The veterinarians of the DACC have affiliations with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and are currently involved in many collaborative projects.

The first involves the use of a DNA vaccine against malignant melanoma in dogs. Melanoma, especially when located in the oral cavity, toe or footpad can be an extremely aggressive tumor that commonly spreads to other sites and is resistant to chemotherapy. We have recently published the results of the first DNA vaccine trial in nine client-owned dogs with advanced malignant melanoma and found that the vaccine caused no toxicity and a significant prolongation of survival. If your pet has melanoma and you are interested in additional information on these ongoing investigations, please go to our Clinical Trials site.

The second involves the use of another DNA vaccine that tries to tell the immune system to attack the blood vessels of tumors in dogs and cats. The blood vessels of tumors are very different than normal blood vessels. We hope to take advantage of this fact to then have the immune system attack the cancers blood vessels in order to starve the tumor and cause regression. Since this study is a preliminary investigation, we will be first investigating the use of this vaccine on dogs with advanced cancers to determine its safety and efficacy. If you are interested in additional information on this study, please go to our Clinical Trials site.

FLAHERTY COMPARATIVE ONCOLOGY LABORATORY

The Flaherty Comparative Oncology Laboratory (FCOL) is the new translational research laboratory supporting the DACC, Bobst Hospital and The Animal Medical Center. This state-of-the-art laboratory within The AMC provides support for the doctors of the DACC by performing investigations in a wide variety of areas. For example, a robotic arm machine performs special studies on tumor samples for both diagnosis and/or prognosis (i.e. how well we expect a patient with a tumor will do after appropriate therapy). We are currently the only site in the world performing prognostic panels on the tumors of dogs with mast cell tumor or lymphoma.

In addition, the FCOL supports the DACC by processing blood samples from the patients on the aforementioned various DNA vaccine studies in order to determine if the correct immune response is taking place. The FCOL recently acquired a state-of-the-art five color flow cytometer in order to better understand the immune responses of pets receiving various vaccines against cancer. In addition, the FCOL has recently hired a new post-doc, Dr. Jack Liao to perform these investigations.

There are presently only a handful of laboratories with this level of expertise in veterinary medicine throughout the world. Similarly, the FCOL is currently investigating a number of other areas (e.g. oral tumors in cats, mammary tumors in cats, etc.) to better understand the specific disease we are interested in to then formulate novel therapies. The FCOL is supported by a research technician, Diane Craft and an assistant, Carrie Leung.

SUMMARY

The DACC is committed to state-of-the-art patient care, training and research. As part of the Bobst Hospital of The Animal Medical Center, DACC patients requiring hospitalization benefit from the specialty care provided by more than 20 Board-Certified veterinarians in the various specialties of veterinary medicine and state-of-the-art equipped Intensive Care, Hemodialysis, Surgery and Radiology units. If you would like to set up an appointment for your pet with the oncology service, please call the appointment desk at (212) 838-7053 or (212) 838-8100.

PHONE NUMBERS:

To make an appointment:

(212) 838-7053

To make a referral:

(212) 329-8890