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At Perth Cat Hospital, we aim to provide your cat with the most up to date treatments. It is our goal to help you understand all relevant information you need in order to make the right decisions how to treat your precious feline friend. In line with this, we are now able to offer a complete approach to cancer care, treatment and diagnostics.

Just the mere mention of the word “chemotherapy” conjures up pictures of suffering, nausea, vomiting and hair loss. Together with the emotional turbulence of a cancer diagnosis, the thought of giving chemotherapy to your cat can be daunting and scary. However, these negative images we perceive from our experiences with humans are very often not the case when we administer chemotherapy to cats. Many owners are surprised and relieved to see almost all cats undergoing chemotherapy treatment go through their protocol with minimal to no side effects.

How is chemotherapy administered?

Most chemotherapy treatments are administered directly by an injection into the vein. This is performed by slowly injecting directly into the vein or through an intravenous drip usually given over 30-60 minutes. Some drugs are in capsule or tablet form and need to be given orally.

Most cases are treated on an outpatient basis. Patients are usually admitted in the morning and discharged later that same day.

What side effects does chemotherapy have in pets?

Unlike chemotherapy in humans, cats experience very few side effects from chemotherapy drugs. The reason for this is mainly because the doses we use are much lower but also because they appear to tolerate the drugs better. In humans, much higher doses of chemotherapy are used as we are trying to achieve a much longer life expectancy than we could realistically expect from a cat. Our quality of life doesn’t come into question as we can make our own choices about what we put ourselves through.

In humans it is well documented that if a chemo drug is used that does not cause nausea and vomiting, people still experience these symptoms. This has been researched and put down to a psychogenic cause; we think we should experience nausea and therefore we do.

Our cats do not know that they are undergoing chemotherapy. The result is that we only have to deal with real nausea and vomiting with those drugs that definitely are known to cause it and there are only one or two of these that we use in veterinary chemotherapy. Prevention of nausea or vomiting in these cases is easily achieved through tablets dosed prior to and just after the chemotherapy. 

Suppression of the bone marrow can occur with any chemotherapeutic drug however we see this very infrequently in our feline patients. We carefully monitor your cat’s bone marrow function by taking regular blood samples to check the white blood cell counts. If their cell counts drop too low we will withhold giving any further chemo treatment until their blood count returns to normal.

Hair loss does not occur commonly in cats undergoing chemotherapy. This is because chemotherapy only affects hair that grows continually. Body hair in cats does not grow continually however some cats may lose their whiskers with some treatments. Hair re-growth from shaved areas does tend to be sparse whilst on chemotherapy treatment.

If you are at all concerned about any side effects your cat may be having toward their chemotherapy, please contact us immediately.

Is chemotherapy effective?

Depending on the type of cancer your cat may have, the answer to this question is yes. Many people speak about a “cure” for cancer, with chemotherapy treatment we can expect this in responsive cancers in about 10-15% of patients. Now, that may not seem very high, but it certainly is not 0%!

It is important that we have realistic goals when treating cancer, and thus you will often hear the term “remission” used more than “cure”. This is because chemotherapy is extremely effective at achieving remission in a large percentage of cancers, but may only cure a small percentage. The difference between humans and cats, is that cats enjoy a full quality of life BOTH whilst on chemotherapy and during remission.

Is chemotherapy expensive?

Many of the drugs we use for chemotherapy are relatively expensive and the safety precautions that need to be taken in preparing and administering these drugs also add to their cost. However in most cases protocols can be individualised to suit both affordability and logistics. One must also remember that whilst an expensive surgical procedure performed on your cat requires full settlement on discharge, a chemotherapy protocol generally runs over a period of time, often 4-6 months, and thus these costs are then spread out over that time. So whilst chemotherapy treatment is not inexpensive, it can be tapered for individual cases. It is thus our recommendation that a consultation with one of our vets be held after the diagnosis of cancer in your cat where all the variables and possibilities can be discussed with you.

In summary, our thoughts on chemotherapy are often formed by our often negative experiences of cancer treatment in our human relatives or friends. This is indeed not the case when treating cats for cancer.

Our foremost goal is total quality of life, and we seek this in everything we do. There is a thought that says: “If we cannot extend life with quality, then it is not worth extending”.