FidoCure^® Veterinary Team Blog

In veterinary cancer care, it’s common to come across tough clinical questions where there is no known right answer.

In veterinary cancer care, it’s common to come across tough clinical questions where there is no known right answer. A few examples include:

Mental health for veterinary professionals can be a challenge in the best of times and even more so during the stressful COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us are concerned with keeping our teams mentally healthy and happily engaged.
In the seventh webinar of this series, we welcome Dr. Carrie Jurney, DVM, DACVIM (Neurology), President of Not One More Vet, a non-profit supporting the mental health of veterinary professionals. She highlights the history of mental health in the veterinary community and delves into its effects during the global pandemic. Dr. Jurney discusses best practices and potential solutions, and provides answers to some of your most asked questions.

In our fifth webinar of this series, we welcome Joe Costa, COO of Wedgewood Pharmacy, to discuss the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the veterinary compounding pharmaceutical industry. Joe will share how Wedgewood has been able to deliver for veterinarians and their patients despite COVID-19 disruption.

In the second segment of our third webinar, Dr. Pamela Schwartz shared experiences from the epicenter of the US COVID-19 crisis: New York City. Dr. Schwartz is the Chair of Department of Surgery, Soft Tissue & Orthopedics at the Animal Medical Center, the largest animal hospital in NY. Leading the surgery department at the largest animal hospital in New York is a challenge in normal days, let alone during a global pandemic. Dr. Schwartz shared how her hospital is handling the logistical, medical, and emotional challenges posed by the current situation.

Our second webinar featured a living legend in veterinary medicine Dr. Michael J Blackwell, DVM, MPH. Dr. Blackwell is a former USPHS Assistant Surgeon General, has served as the Dean of The University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, the Deputy Director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, the Chief Veterinary Officer of the US Public Health Service, and the Chief Veterinary Officer of The Humane Society.  

In the second segment, Drs. Krystal Harris and Jen McDaniel, shared changes and challenges created by COVID-19 at their practices, in Texas and Connecticut respectively.

To accommodate, we worked hard to move up the release date of our adverse effects data summary. Our data is based on 455 canine patients who enrolled in FidoCure-enabled targeted therapies between February 2018 and February 2020, with 390 of these whose clinicians reported outcomes .

Conclusion:
Our key conclusion is that the side effect profiles of these targeted therapies are very similar to Palladia (toceranib phosphate). Thank you to all of the veterinary oncologists who have opted for FidoCure® genomic sequencing, precision therapies, and graciously shared the outcomes of your cases. We have aggregated your data on several hundred dogs and are sharing this with you and your colleagues so that you are more empowered and informed when speaking to your clients. The data below is retrospective based on your medical records, clinician-reported outcomes, and completed Adverse Effect (AE) forms, along with client-reported outcomes.

As you can see from the chart below, the most common side effects involving diarrhea, vomiting, inappetence, and lethargy were mild. For the targeted therapies in our formulary, these side effects occurred in approximately 20% of patients for most of the drugs.

Sadly, today's circumstances cause us to change our plans and respond immediately to the escalating COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.First and foremost, the coronavirus pandemic is a tragedy affecting hundreds of thousands of people, and our hearts go out to all those suffering from the disease and its impact. We also understand that COVID-19 is affecting the mobility of hundreds of millions of people as more and more aspects of daily life are being restricted due to the virus. Below we address concerns that veterinarians, their support team, and pet parents may have at a time when clinic access may be limited or non-existent.