New Treatment For Horses With Cancer

Iridium-192 has a high success rate for equine skin tumours, which do not respond to other types of treatment.

It is a form of radiation and particularly suits treatment of tumours where surgery would be unsuitable or where recurrence is a major problem, including sarcoids, the most common form of equine cancer.

Although unlikely to spread to other parts of the body, sarcoids can be invasive and particularly recurrent, and, as well as looking unpleasant, they can become painful to the affected horses.

Horses receiving iridium therapy will typically be at the clinic for 7 - 10 days, when wires will be placed under local anesthetic and radiation will be monitored. After treatment is complete, the wires are removed and the tumour will reduce in size over the next few months, offering a long term solution to a problem which other methods have failed to cure.

The AHT is pleased to announce that, as from August 2007, radiotherapy using Iridium-192 wires has been available in our Equine Centre to help with the treatment of horses with cancer.

For further information about the Animal Health Trust please visit:
http://www.aht.org.uk/

For further information on sarcoids provided by the Animal Health Trust please visit:
http://www.aht.org.uk/equine_clinoncology.html

Equine Health Articles by Mark Andrews BVM&S CertEP MRCVS