Dr. Kelly: All this stuff is coming out and that’s why I love oncology. It’s just so fun and there’s so much I mean, that sounds kind of crazy. Oncology is fun, but it’s just that the whole goal is, you know, we all want a cure.
Dr. Venable: Welcome to the Veterinary Cancer Pioneers Podcast, the show where we delve into the groundbreaking work of veterinary professionals who are dedicated to advancing the field of veterinary oncology. I'm your host, Dr. Rachel Venable, and I'm thrilled to embark on this journey with you. This episode is produced and brought to you by ImpriMed, pioneers in an AI-driven precision medicine for veterinary oncology. ImpriMed’s personalized prediction Profile helps you make confident treatment decisions for canine lymphoma and leukemia patients by predicting how your patient will respond to multiple chemotherapy protocol options. If you've never used it before, US-based veterinarians are eligible for 50% off their first Personalized Prediction Profile with discount code ‘PODCAST’. Learn more at imprimedicine.com. That is imprimedicine.com.
Dr. Venable: Hello and welcome to the Veterinary Cancer Pioneers podcast. Today we have a real pioneer in the field. Dr. Kelly is a boarded veterinary oncologist. She went to Colorado State for vet school and then did her residency at the University of Pennsylvania. And she’s really just been out there trying to help people and meet them where they are, and even extend herself to try new therapies, do options, even new forms of medicine. So today we’re going to dive in because she’s the main specialist where she lives. So we’re going to talk about this more today. And I think it’s going to be a great conversation and just really learning how we can expand on what we’re already doing and maybe how to be a little braver. Try some new stuff. So Dr. Kelly, thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Kelly: I’m really happy to be here. Thank you for having me. And I’m excited.
Dr. Venable: Just to let people know you actually have your own clinic. You’re in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s called Veterinary Cancer Care. And we’ve talked and you told me that you’re really the main specialist in your location in Santa Fe. Is that right?
Dr. Kelly: It’s so. Yes. I’m. I’m originally from Brooklyn, and my dream was to live in Colorado. I was only going to Colorado State because I had an equine science program. I was going to be equine vet. So I was I was an equine science major. So I did my undergraduate at CSU, and then I did my internship in San Diego, my residency at UPenn. And then I was fortunate to work with Dr. Jeglum. And in Westchester, he just recently passed away. So he was a really wonderful mentor to me. I miss her, Colorado was my dream. And then the whole time I was there for eight years, it got so crowded and so I wanted to go where I was needed. And so Santa Fe just kept coming up. People kept telling me about the high desert. I didn’t really know what that meant. And then once I understood that, oh, high desert is not cactus. And, it’s not 130 degrees there. And I fell in love with Santa Fe sight unseen. And I just love it. I love Santa Fe. It’s a small town. My friend from vet school just came to visit me, and he couldn’t believe how small it was. Like, this is the downtown. You know, there’s about maybe 80,000 people here. Yeah. So life in Santa Fe has been great. Owning my own practice is really fun. I have a lot of flexibility. And also because I’m in more of a small town and I’m a solo practitioner, it’s nice. I really do have a lot of flexibility and travel.
Dr. Venable: You mentioned that you originally went to Colorado from Brooklyn and you wanted to do horses. So how did you end up in oncology?
Dr. Kelly: As I was working in a necropsy with, Dennis Madden and then I was also working in the barn shoveling manure, the cleaning stalls. And on my way to the barn and on my way to necropsy, both where I parked my car, I passed the oncology ward and, Dr. Phil Bergman, he was doing his internship. He would wave to me, and had a big smile. There were all these white faced, dogs running around, three legged with laryngeal paralysis. And and it was like, free roam. And they’re all just, you know, it was just. I kept squeezing my way into the oncology ward and and still one day he said, do you want to see your cancer cell under the microscope? And that was it. I was like, you know, like, no way. And so then I started hanging out at the oncology ward, and that’s how it all happened.
Dr. Venable: That’s awesome. And when you were there, I think Withrow was there as well. Did he influence you into doing oncology? Yes.
Dr. Kelly: Yeah. So I was a puppy dog and so he was doing the limb spare, procedures with the implants. And it was fabulous. We had human doctors flying in. We had dogs coming from all over. Limb spares left and right. And then, of course, you know about the cancer camp. For people, I, I never went, but a lot of the vets were going and sharing stories and, and how this limb sparing was helping children and and then I met people after that, I belong to the American Cancer Foundation. I donate and here in Santa Fe I go to their annual fundraiser and I go to all their events. I was at one of their events like two weeks ago. And all these cancer survivors and kids, you know, with osteosarcoma that don’t die of us. These are the men who are so and, you know, I and I know Steve Withrow is a huge, you know, part of all of that.
Dr. Venable: It is amazing, right? I just think it’s incredible how dogs can help people and people help dogs. It’s just such an amazing thing. And so in Santa Fe, where you are, as you mentioned, you’re a solo practitioner. And what's it like? You know, can you kind of explain to some of the others out there who aren’t in their own business? You know, you do a lot of different types of treatments, try out a lot of different new things. Can you tell us more about it?
Dr. Kelly: Veterinary Cancer Care, it’s a specialty clinic. There was a 24 hour emergency specialty clinic that I was leasing space from before Covid. So I had everything before Covid. So now I have an emergency clinic next door. I haven’t had one in about five years, so thank goodness. And now I have a criticalist next door. And there’s a radiologist that is just working there part time. So things are happening in Santa Fe. It went from nothing at all to things that are definitely evolving. So I’m really excited. I know specialist folks here. I mean, this is like a hidden gem. So maybe I can advertise for market listings. I’m here because there’s definitely a market. Because I’m not corporate, I just have a lot of flexibility on what I can do.
And I do a lot of NuQ at the clinic just to see how that can help. And I’m still trying to feel it out and understand so I can tell the company, you know, this is how it helps my patients and all the things that I do, such as NuQ I just offer it at cost, you know, to the clients we run NuQ and tests. So not making a profit. I just want to be able to share that information.
Same with Dr. Guannan Wong, I’m doing tons of VetOmics. Almost all my patients have been VetOmics and the clients know that I’m not trying to sell it or tell them we’re just learning. I’m literally. And the clients are into it. They’re completely into sharing information. They want to be part of it. And so the thing about VetOmics is we’re using, you know, drugs that are not FDA-approved or drugs that, you know, and all the PK studies and beagles, which is really sad in itself. But what I’m hoping is that if more people are doing VetOmics in private practice or universities, then we don't have to use beagles and mice anymore. And, and so I know that I can’t publish, that I don’t have the ability to do that in a private practice setting and as a solo practitioner. But if I can gather information and have data that I can share with the university, that they can go through my medical records and they can look at my medical record here, look at everybody I’ve done a Nu Q on and see what you find. Look at everybody that I’ve done VetOmics on and see, you know, what information that you can gather where you can do a funded, you know, multi-institutional clinical trial. I think that’s really what I’m hoping for, is to just do my little part. You know, in the whole scheme of things.
Dr. Kelly: Ever since ImpriMed came out, I’ve been doing ImpriMed on all my lymphomas. I do them in the beginning, when they relapse. And I do feel like our lymphomas do phenomenal. And that’s a part of it.
But we also do tons of nutrition counseling. All my clients are really into this, you know, healing great diets. I have them consult with nutritionists. I use pet diets. It’s an online nutrition consult platform.
We also have a kitchen here in Santa Fe called Shine, and they have a nutritionist on staff, and they have a veterinarian on staff. They make gently cooked foods. They also do raw. And I try to steer away from raw and our immunocompromised patients. I’m not against anything. I’m open to anything. But still, I usually, in an older pet, I think a gently-cooked diet is okay, but if someone comes in on a raw diet, I’m not going to preach, you know, if that’s what they want, that’s fine. You know?
So all of our patients getting vitamin D tested, we use our vitamins for our vitamin D testing. And that’s a study right there. Every single cancer patient on commercial dog food is vitamin D deficient, every single one. And so and it’s not that I don’t have control because I think, well, let me, you know, let me check the brother or the sister. And it’s interesting, there’s some dogs in the same household and they don’t have cancer and are on commercial dog food and they’re vitamin D sufficient. Yeah. So there’s this like certain things that I see. And I was like, wow, this could be a clinical trial, this can be a clinical trial.
And I just got a vaccine kit from Paris. It’s an autologous vaccine. And I’m hoping that this chemist in Paris will work with Torigen and see if they can put their heads together. This chemist in Paris, she ships out the vaccine kits to human doctors all over Europe. And so I’m the first veterinarian that she’s shipped to. She’s doing some clinical trials with veterinary oncologists in Europe.
I’m allowed to do it as long as everybody’s signing consent forms and I don’t make any false promises. I have a lot of freedom to play around with things, and I like it. It’s just, you know, everybody gets bored of CHOP, and it’s just like, okay, here’s CHOP, here’s your survival time and how. And I don’t think any of those survival times make any sense, because some dogs will go forever and some dogs will just go a short time. And I think the DNA testing VetOmics makes it, you know, and really is, is really important.
There’s a new company called Can Can. They’re in Edinburgh. They do DNA testing and they offer therapeutic options from a blood draw. I’ve talked to them a little bit at the conferences, and I have their little tubes to collect, you know, blood from. I just have to do a lot of more reading and read some journal articles before I can start incorporating that into the practice. And I thought it would be great for Can Can, you know, diagnostics and VetOmics to put their heads together. So I just like to, want to match people up. I guess. So that’s my spiel.
Dr. Venable: So it’s great. And I think it’s good to try to help all these companies, because a lot of these companies are coming into the veterinary market, small or smaller startups trying to break through. So I think it’s great trying to help everybody get out. And it’s really fast. I mean there’s there I mean you're trying all different kinds of products. And how do you decide what to try because, you know, there’s a lot of stuff out there you certainly named quite a bit so far. So what do you do? You mentioned checking research. Is that what you do or you know, or is there anything else that helps you determine which products you use?
Dr. Kelly: Well, I mean like simply ImpriMed has been around for a long time and they're working really hard, you know, in regards to their publishing, they’re coming to the meetings. And so, I feel like I’m meeting them and I’m using their product. And so I’ve been doing ImpriMed from pretty much day one and hand tailoring my lymphoma protocols. So I feel like if they’re doing their part and, and I’ll do my part in the same, I think NuQ there’s a lot to learn from it. It may just be Nu Q may be just like a stepping stone to something else. I have NuQ and my clinic, so I just do Nu Q on A like in lymphoma in the beginning, when I stop treatment and then on recheck exams, especially if the lymph node feels a little prominent and I don’t know if it’s reactive or not.
And so far I think it’s helping. It’s showing that maybe a lymphoma is creeping out of remission, when I don’t quite know. And so where I could maybe biopsy the lymph node or, or do something more, and then I could always take a sample of that lymph node and send it to ImpriMed. So that’s how I use it. VetOmics, I’m trying to do DNA testing and gilvetmab has been recommended for a mast cell tumor that I just saw. Gilvetmab from VetOmics has just been for a soft tissue sarcoma that is grade one under the microscope. So it. But biologically, it’s a grade three. The way it’s behaving is specifically a tumor like that. Okay? This tumors is not behaving like a grade one soft tissue sarcoma. And it’s behaving differently.
So I have two dogs. It’s really cool. I have a cello and oh gosh, I’m glad that they’re littermates that they both have anal gland adenocarcinoma and they’re litter mates. So one dog has anal gland and a carcinoma and it’s the size of a pea, just found on a rectal exam. And then the other dog presents with an anal bland and no carcinoma that has taken off. It’s a legato-sized dog. So that’s like a 50 pound dog. So it’s a grapefruit sized mass. It’s metastasized to the lumbar spine, sub lumbar lymph nodes, lungs. It’s everywhere. So under the microscope, histopathologically when you remove the anal gland and both of the dogs that they’re the same, under the microscope. So histopathologically. And all my histopath has to go to Dr. Powers. So. Dr. Barb Powers is looking. So that goes to Vidium. So she’s looking at those in the same tumor, and then they both went to VetPmics, and they’re completely different tumors. So that would be an example of that specific case I think needs to be a case study and a lot of learning can come from that specific case. So I hope to publish that as a case study once. And both dogs are doing phenomenal, even the one with the spinal metastasis. And yeah, so that’s nice to see. And I’m treating based on that VetOmics therapeutic markers. I have radiation I could refer to. But the spines are right there and, and I’ve talked to different radiation oncologist that don’t think the dog is a good candidate. So there’s really nothing I can do, you know, so I, I don’t have anything to offer, you know. So I got VetOmics. And as long as a client knows that this is basically, I guess experimental or non published, they’re not FDA-approved and they sign all those consent forms and they understand. But I think that’s it. My clients really want to help. They really really want to help. And so even if it’s not helping their dog, they don’t mind spending a little bit of money to share information with, you know, that their community and the one health, you know, concept where we’re helping not just dogs and cats, but people and children and, chinchillas and and hopefully healthy mice by not having to use them anymore because it doesn’t make any sense. They just, I don’t know, just using mice, the same facility when there’s a, there’s a dog model that can be used.
Dr. Venable: All right. And I’m sure your clients also see your passion and energy and, you know, wanting to help everyone and to try to advance medicine. And I’m wondering what advice you would give an oncologist, because I think a lot of us, like you said, we get bored and maybe we want to try something new but are kind of nervous because they haven’t done it before or not, published. So what advice would you give to someone wanting to maybe step out a little bit? Try some new things? How do you talk to clients?
Dr. Kelly: Example. Guannan Wang. Email her. Call her. Oh my gosh, you know, she’s so passionate about what she’s doing and she’s doing the work. So just talk to her and then get a list for her of all the vets that she has, you know, call, email, text, however you like to communicate and just learn how. And then I think that’s it. It’s just putting our heads together. Like, if I’m just doing that, I’m like here at Veterinary Cancer Care and just talking to my clients about it, that’s not anything. You know, I have to share, like what I’m doing with other people, which way. And eventually that will hopefully become a multi-institutional clinical trial, you know, chatting it up.
You know. So yeah. So it's interesting like just things that have been around forever like the melanoma vaccine. You know, every time I give a melanoma vaccine I wonder is, is helping. Is this not helping. And then I’ve been practicing for so long that I’ve had dogs get the melanoma vaccine when they’ve had, you know, full blown lung metastasis. And then the lung metastasis has gotten, you know, completely gone invisibly, invisibly on a radiograph. And then I’ve had dogs and you know, they get the vaccine lung metastases and nothing happens. And then that would be a perfect example of, you know, how VetOmics could help us. Like why did that one dog, you know, respond. And so so yeah. So you just need more information.
And you know, all this stuff is coming out and that’s why I, I love oncology. It’s just so fun. You know, there’s so much I mean that sounds kind of crazy. Oncology is fun, but it’s just that the whole goal is, you know, we all want to cure. Yes. Sharing information with each other is so important.
Dr. Kelly: And now we have the listserv and we have meetings and and now we have this you know, it’s like what you’re doing. There’s so many ways of sharing information.
Dr. Venable: And one good thing about technology is we can really share and get more information because, you know, the other thing you’re caseload, I would assume, is a lot higher than some in academia. And because that’s where we can really do a lot of the studies and they have all of that set up, but they don’t necessarily have that large caseload anymore. So there certainly are some universities do, but not everybody. So it’s nice for private practice, especially in the beginning, to get that sense of how products are working. And it’s all really exciting what you’re doing. And you talk a lot about genomics. What do you think about immunotherapy? Anything that you’re excited about? I know you mentioned you’ve got a new vaccine kit, but anything else that you’re interested in or have looked into with immunotherapy?
Dr. Kelly: Yeah, we’ve been using Immunocidin® in NovaVive. I’ve, you know, reached out to us many years ago and they asked us to, you know, they sent us free, you know, Immunocidin®. And he’s at Colorado State right now. He did a study with doxorubicin followed by intravenous Immunocidin®, which is extra label use. And there was no improvement. You know, in that study. But also it was hemangiosarcoma and probably maybe 15 cases or 30. And I’m sorry, I’m probably betraying this study by not knowing exactly. So we started doing an intravenous, you know,Immunocidin® before that study. And I think that allowed them, you know, to feel comfortable and to actually do the study. So I think that we were doing intravenous Immunocidin®, I don’t know, a whole bunch of different tumor types to see if it was safe. It was a safety study. And then we did the same oral Immunocidin®. And and that’s all basically just a safety study. And that was great. And because I had a couple of abstracts and presented, people are always coming to the clinic wanting Immunocidin®, and I say, sure, because it doesn’t hurt. I don’t do it intravenously. I just send it home orally when they want it. It’s an immunomodulatory agent. It’s a little piece of the cell wall of tuberculosis, and it stimulates the innate, immune system. The adaptive immune system has all these different mechanisms, but I think it’s very similar, I would think, to, you know, all Greg McEwen stuff where he did the LNP, PTTE, you know, the like the liposomal neuro tri-peptide.And so, I think that’s why I was interested in immuno side. And I was working with Dr. Jeglum and we were doing monoclonal antibodies and Dr. Jeglum, I know she didn’t get published much because when I was with her we saw 60 to 80 patients a day. And so that’s a lot of patients. And so we treated so many lymphomas and it was L-Asparaginase, Vincristine and Cytoxan, and Doxo for two cycles. And then they got monoclonal antibody. And most of those dogs and we’re going past a year. And so and then they would come out of remission. And then we do the same thing all over again. And they’re getting second and third remissions. So unfortunately, that was the monoclonal antibody with the Wistar Institute. And then it became unavailable. So and then Dr. McEwen and Dr. Jeglum are really good friends. And Dr. McEwen would be calling Dr. Jeglum for advice all the time on patients because of her caseload, because he was at Madison, Wisconsin, saying, you know, how cases…
So they were always on the phone. And I just thought, oh my gosh, Dr. McEwen’s on the phone. So yeah. So it’s just so I just saw how a private practice like Dr. Jeglum, if you just had the caseload and I always thought when I was there, like, why are these two not working together? They’re talking on the phone all the time. They’re friends. So why are they not doing a clinical trial together? And so, you know, so I guess that was where I really, you know, fell in love with immunotherapy, and that’s really cool.
Dr. Venable: And where do you get Immunocidin® and I, I obviously haven’t used it much. Is it commercially available?
Dr. Kelly: Yeah. So Immunocidin® is Novavive. Dr. Miriam Cervantes is the head researcher. There. And pretty sure if you go to the website they have a For Vets only. And it has tons of papers. See, is intramuscular and bovine herd health when they get those ugly papilloma, you know, wart tumors all over their body, one intramuscular injection for the whole herd can wipe out, so virally induced tumors.
Dr. Kelly: Miriam Cervantes. She will answer any question. She’s great. And then the Immunocidin® just comes in a little vial. It’s a 5 ml that we have. I think it comes in different sizes. There’s an equine, but it’s all the same. And then it’s for intra tumor use. That’s what it’s been FDA approved for for mammary tumors. That’s the only way it’s been approved. But there’s been clinical trials giving it orally and intravenously and intra-tumor. So I’ve seen it. The side effect I usually see is just fever. They feel flushed and I feel like the oral is doing something. I only offered if they’ve done all this research, by themselves and they’ve, you know, they’re really into immunotherapy and, and so then I’ll, I’ll script it out orally and then if they feel flushed or a little lethargic or it’s cumulative, then I’ll back up on the dose.
So maybe like once a week I don’t give it to my lymphomas, when they’re on prednisone because, you know, because that’s going to suppress the immune system when we’re trying to, you know, uproot. I wouldn’t give it to like an immune-mediated, you know, patient, anybody that hasn’t like lupus per se or a dog with an immune disease, but I think mycobacterium, so all synthesis fraction, you know, can probably do a lot of things, a lot of, a lot of great things.
And we just need someone to like Dr. Dow or someone to become interested in it. And, and you know, I don’t want to, you know, start a clinical trial, and it's economical. That’s the other thing too. It's here, it’s available. It’s economical.
Dr. Venable: Very cool. And how have you found, as you said, you’re in Santa Fe for a long time now. It sounds like you’re starting to get a few more specialists. But how do you sound being kind of the main specialist in one area, what’s it been like for you?
Dr. Kelly: It’s challenging. Because people just walk in with everything just because I, No, I’m an oncologist at this, so I have people walk in and they don’t have a vet, and they, they have an uncontrolled diabetic. They have a dog with Cushing’s. Now, I’m an internist. And the nice thing is, like, I have Antech where I send my blood to the outside labs. Like I can talk to an internist, Bri, just call an internal medicine, and I can talk to ten internists in a day and get ten different, you know, opinions and that’s what I love, talking to an internal medicine, because every time you talk to an internist, each one has a different you know, everybody said something different. I love that, you know what I mean? So it’s like practicing medicine and then I love it because I’m by myself. So I am calling Antech every single day about anything or anything just to talk to another. And that’s a lot of fun. I learned a lot.
So, I had a case. I have a dog with, golden retriever mixed with lymphoma. The litter mate came in to see mel, owned by the uncle, dogs having full blown grandma seizures. That dog comes in because their litter mate has lymphoma and remission. So they think, oh, it must be lymphoma in the brain. So they show up, put my stethoscope on and oh, guess what? There’s an arrhythmia. Like a really bad one. Like, oh my gosh, the heart is going crazy. And so I did the echo, I did the EKG, I did the chest x-rays and the dogs passing out in my lobby.
Dr. Kelly: And then I got them on some medications. Long story short, the dog went to CSU, last week and home with his new pacemaker and it’s perfect. So, I do other things, because they’re critical and they need help and they need support. And, of course, I can refer them to Albuquerque, which is an hour away, and I will, you know, send them. But I, this one, I couldn’t. But by the time the dog got there, he probably wouldn’t have made it, I guess. So, I do have an emergency clinic next door. I could have turf them next door, but I could. That’s the fun part. I can just put that ultrasound probe on them. My clinic is a tiny little building.
We don’t have to go down to, like, cardiology. I literally have to walk five steps to the ultrasound room, take the x-ray, put the EKG leads on, get the diagnosis I did, I got a diagnosis. I’m like, and then I send everything to a board-certified cardiologist. So I get the full blown, you know, report with the board. So everything goes through telemedicine. But I made a diagnosis, got the dog to CSU and, you know, and like, in such a short period of time, I think that’s, that’s the fun part is to be able to do stuff like that.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. That is, while that’s quite a story, I would have been a bit intimidated trying to work that case out. So that’s awesome that you helped that dog and that he’s doing well now. So that’s so amazing. Yeah.
Dr. Kelly: It’s really it’s it’s super awesome. So yeah. So I got my little cardiology fix and then I get to talk to everybody at CSU and I got to, you know, learn and I, you know, I just had third degree AV block. So I didn’t know that I knew the dog had an arrhythmia and I knew it was a bad one. But I was looking at the EKG and I was like, that’s not a VPC. I don’t know what that is.
Dr. Venable: Nice. Now, I love all that interplay and how we can all help each other out and thinking about different treatments. I know we’ve talked in the past, but you do quite a bit of electro-chemotherapy. Can you tell me more about that?
Dr. Kelly: So I started electro chemo in 2010. So I was at the Vet Cancer Society and Leroy was there. And it was interesting because I went to the Leroy booth and at the time, the engineer that built the machine was there. That was the representative for the company. He didn’t speak a word of English. So I just so I, I think I found someone that spoke some French and then we started to like, have a dialog and he had some oranges and some apples, and I started zapping it.
And, the electro chemo was a no brainer because at the time I moved to New Mexico in 2001, when I first got to New Mexico. That’s a funny story. I was going to work emergency medicine while I studied my boards. I was working for Dr. Tilly. He wrote all the cardiology books. I was helping him with telemedicine, work in the emergency clinic. And then all of a sudden, there are people lined out the door that there’s an oncologist in Santa Fe with their cancer vets. And I’m like, I can’t help you. I’m sorry. And so this cute little old lady with the oxygen tank and her little tiny little dog with lymphoma crying and, you know, just bawling. And I was like, oh my God. Okay. So right across the street from the emergency clinic was Saint Vincent’s Hospital. So I went over there, got some chemo, drugs, and the emergency clinic let me take care of this cute little lymphoma dog during the day. And then the next thing I knew that it was full blown.
The second patient that I treated was a dog with osteosarmoca. This is really cool. They said only holistic, we don’t want anything. And I was like, well, I don’t even know why you’re here. I'm not a holistic doctor, I can’t help you. Didn’t say that out loud. They’re crying. And I said I was trying to refer them and they’re not interested in radiation. They’re not going to do chemo. They’re not going to do this. I’m not going to. They’re not going to do anything. I was like, okay. And, and but and they’re crying. You have to help me. You have to help me. And I was just like, it’s I don’t know. My and I just started thinking and I went home and I just and I just felt so guilty, like, because I basically told them I can’t help you. That’s not the right answer. I’m a doctor. I’m a veterinarian. I have to help them. There’s got to be something. Whether it’s aloe vera, or noni juice. So there’s got to be something. So I thought of Steve Withrow, and I had the dog come back, and they had them sign all these consent forms, and I injected, it was a proximal humeron osteosarcoma and a Anatolian Shepherd. And I intermittently injected the tumor with cisplatin. Because Dr. Withrow putting OPRA implants and the limb spares and it’s like, well, he’s doing OPRA implants. It causes all this, you know, reaction and people use local cisplatin and horses and okay. And on sarcoids, and why not I’ll just try it. Well, the dog lives seven years, you know. So it was awesome. And we did intermittent local cisplatin and yeah. And Lucy Decker, I’ll never forget her. And so, and yeah so that’s how electro chemo happened while I was injecting tumors. I was injecting bleomycin in an acanthomatous epulis. I published a small little paper on that, and so, there were old dogs that couldn’t have surgery because they had heart failure or whatever reason. And it was just that it was supposed to be palliative. I mean, I saw a horrible epulis, like, one cocker spaniel is, like, growing all the way down his neck. Like, you know, this is not what the textbook says about an epulis, you know, and I’m injecting that, and it’s just, you know, in the dog is clinically normal, so intermittently.
So that’s how the electro chemo started. I was injecting tumors, osteosarcoma with cisplatin. And then acanthomatous epulis with bleomycin. And then, there’s a small report from Italy, soft tissue sarcomas and completely resected with 5-fluorouracil. So I started doing that. I treated oh my gosh, I could probably do a retrospective on that because I probably treated at least 300, 400, 500 dogs, soft tissue sarcomas like that. That’s the numbers you know, that you have. So I probably went through all my records and just and it was safe. I mean, it was just like they just come in for a quick shot, you know, just by the few right there at the surgical bed. Outpatient, bye, your appointments in ten minutes, see you later. We didn’t have radiation here. I could send them to Arizona or Colorado State, and most of my clients can do that. New Mexico’s a poor state. I think that’s how it all happens. I mean, of course, there’s a lot of wealth in Santa Fe, but I see a lot of people with no money. And I think that’s how I started doing the things that I did.
Dr. Venable: So I think it’s great that you just try to meet people where they are. You know, you aren’t satisfied with saying, I don’t have any options, even though you actually did give them several options. They just didn’t want to do them. So you try to find people where they are and meet their needs. And, you know, I think that’s really encouraging. I think sometimes a lot of us get sort of stuck in the same rhythm and just not wanting to go outside of our comfort zone. So I love how you’re willing to try new things, willing to meet clients where they are. And I also think it’s why is it you have them sign off on a lot of those things just in case? Because, you know, with some of this, you don’t know how it’s all going to go. So that makes a lot of sense to me.
Dr. Kelly: I think that’s it. As long as I give them like the worst case scenario, like five for yourself, you can have a genetic mutation. It’s in people and in dogs where you can’t clear the drug and you can have full blown seizures and death, you know, like, so it’s. And I did see, 530 or so, I like I said, I probably treated 300 dogs. I’ll just get that number that was hundreds upon hundreds. But I did see in all the years I saw, like five reactions. It’s not death, but definitely seizures and high fevers. And I did start a study, but I never follow through because we’re trying to figure out the genetic mutation. You know, where you couldn’t clear the drug, which is a really rare thing that happens in people. And it happens and, so but yeah, so I think that’s it. I mean, Betsy Hershey, I think that’s, you know, for and I’ve talked about once and I’ve heard her say on multiple occasions and why she does what she does is because she wanted to not be able to just turn someone away just because they don’t want to do CHOP, like, okay, well, don’t let the door you or maybe you can’t even afford lomustine, you know, like maybe you can’t afford the the weekly CBC or you know, so I mean, there’s you just can’t, you know, so that I think that’s, where, you know, why Betsy started doing the things that she did is she wanted to give people options. Some people are scared to death. The chemo, they’re just not going to do it. They saw what happened to their mom. And you like it. And we don’t need to convince people. If that’s not what you want, you don’t get it.
It’s just you don’t want to convince them that it’s going to be okay. Because it may not be okay. I mean, who knows? Maybe the dog will have full blown liver failure or horrible thrombocytopenia. So, I mean, it can happen. I convinced someone that’s not comfortable. And if they want a strictly holistic or integrative approach, people come to me with stuff and it’s my job to find out if it’s safe for them to have those things because they’re going to do it.
So like if you’re going to give your dog, you know, noni juice, it’s my job to look it up. You know, and, and then urge them not to do, you know, and present that information. It takes a lot of work though. You know, sometimes I literally am up all night long reading about some crazy thing that they, you know, they're going to do. You know, they’re definitely going to do it. My clients are always talking about, you know, like fenbendazole. And I haven’t recommended any of that. I just haven’t found anything, you know. So that’s the nice thing too, is like, I don’t see anything here, that there would be a reason to give this to your dog. And these are the potential side effects. So I can also steer them away from something that could potentially hurt their pet.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. No, I agree with you. I feel like a lot of those people, when they’ve made up their mind, they’re going to do it anyway. So, you know, I think really our job is to try to help guide them. And maybe something like ivermectin, where I just tell people there’s some real side effects with this. And, you know, when we use this drug for what is actually intended for like heartworm, there’s actually some real side effects. So I think sometimes educating people and telling them about it, you know, that then they may not decide to do some of those things. Because sometimes people feel like holistic treatments are just benign. But that’s not always the case. Like vitamin C, you know, there’s a lot of risk with using some of these products, and that one’s certainly not benign either.
Dr. Kelly: Yeah, it can cause aplastic anemia. And, it can also cause hemorrhagic gastroenteritis and also to like, you know, with supplements too. It’s scary because, you know, unless that third party tested and then also two formulations, like a lot of people will be giving CBD, you know, to their cats. But there’s certain oils you can’t, you know, give a cat. And that’s the reason I’m in Santa Fe, which is, you know, everybody here is very holistic, but so I do have to read about all of these things because then, like you said, they’re going to do it. So if you’re going to do CBD, don’t do this one. Cats do this one, you know, there's a full spectrum and then there's a broad spectrum.
And then what are those words mean? And yeah. So again it takes work you know on my part to learn about them. So I’m not like prescribing it because it’s illegal for me to prescribe it. Each state has different rules for my state. I give CBD to my dogs, and I have an old Great Dane that’s doing fabulous. And then she was paralyzed when I got her at six months, and she’s eight going on nine and she’s perfect. And I do vitamin D and nutrition. I do a whole bunch of supplements and like, she’s my little test tube, you know, dog and and so I see really great things like with her. So I do study these things because I want to make sure that we keep the pet safe from the wrong formulation, I guess. But I definitely believe in it. I believe in it for myself and I believe in it because I’ve seen the things with my dogs. But again, just because it’s good for my dog, for me, doesn’t mean it’s good for, you know, again, everybody’s so different, you know, and that’s like the whole what’s right for one dog is not going to be right for another dog.
Dr. Venable: Yeah. And it looks like, you know, you do a lot of research and finding out about new products. So where do you see oncology in the next 5 to 10 years where you think it’s heading?
Dr. Kelly: Oh yeah for sure. Personalized medicine. You know, the genome, all the DNA testing and the immunotherapy. I mean, I think the work is just like, you know, like Steve Dow’s work. I mean, that’s just phenomenal. It says there’s so much I just love immunotherapy. So I’m kind of biased that way.
Dr. Venable: And I agree. And I think too I think we’re going to learn more about oncology. And it's a multi-personalized approach. You know sometimes I think people think oncology is just a cookbook which I don’t agree with. But I think even more so in the future it’s going to become more personalized with the target therapies and immunotherapy and chemo. And I can imagine where it’s going to be, you know, for one cancer, one dog, you use these combinations of treatments, but for the same cancer, a different dog will use something totally different.
Dr. Venable: And it’s like what you were talking about with those littermates, they had the same cancer look, the same under the microscope, but clinically and genetically it was totally different.
Dr. Kelly: Yeah. Littermates which is yeah, that’s the one. I’m so excited to see how things go. And in that case, I definitely haven't talked to Guannan about it yet. I mean, I’ve gotten all her reports and she knows that they’re littermates and she knows she’s been, you know, seeing how they’ve been doing. But yeah, that’s. Yeah, this is pretty exciting stuff.
Dr. Venable: I was just going to say, I love all your passion and excitement for oncology. And I think it’s great how you’ve been doing it for years now, but still have all that passion, you know, as we start to wrap this up, I always like to ask people, who would you recommend as a good guest for this podcast.
Dr. Kelly: For sure, and Dr. Guannan Wang at VetOmics and that she’s doing a podcast right now. She just did her second by cast with doctor Barb Kitchell, who’s here in New Mexico. So I think they’re partnering. So I have to listen to that podcast and see what those guys are doing together. I would say Karen Sorenmo, she’s my mentor at University of Pennsylvania. She’s not at University Pennsylvania anymore. I think she’s doing some breast cancer research at a research group. But she knows so much, you know, about breast cancer, breast cancer receptors. I know we don’t see a lot of that. She’s definitely someone that is up. I guess basically anybody that’s in private practice that’s not corporate would be really good to talk to, and to see how it’s going, you know, these days. And just that, you know, being in a private practice is so different. That’s not corporate because there’s not many of us anymore. You know, Mary Kay Klein, you know, she was like the first. And, I recommend private practice. So if anybody wants to talk to me about it, happy to share information about how to run a practice. And you would think of yourself as a solo practitioner, you wouldn’t be able to get away. And it’s just the opposite. I’m able to get away because my team is so good, and I’ve been able to train everybody, like from the ground up and have lifelong people with me. It’s really cool. I live by it.
Dr. Venable: I love it. I think it’s just been such a great conversation. I’ve learned so much about different products and technology and it's just really cool to hear your stories and what you’re seeing, and I love to see that there’s, you know, different options and, and papers that can come out of all of this. It’s all really fascinating and again, I just love your passion and energy. So thank you so much for being on the show. And also thank you for everything you’ve done for oncology.
Dr. Kelly: Thanks for having me. This is really fun. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Dr. Venable: Well, that's it for this episode of the Veterinary Cancer Pioneers podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insight, we would be so grateful if you could share our podcast with your friends and colleagues. And it would be even more wonderful if you want to give us a five-star rating, positive review, or any kind of feedback on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. The Veterinary Cancer Pioneers Podcast is presented to you by ImpriMed.