About the novel drug for canine lymphoma

Earlier this winter, Craig A Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology), sat down with dvm360 to talk about his lecture on canine lymphoma, presented at the Fetch dvm360 conference in Long Beach, California. In this interview, Clifford focuses on the new drug for treating lymphoma in dogs: Laverdia-CA1. He talks about how the drug is given, its efficacy against T cell lymphoma, and why it is a game-changer for the primary care physician. Clifford also discusses what indolent lymphoma is and what to do after an indolent lymphoma diagnosis. 

Below is a partial transcript. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

Craig A Clifford, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Oncology): So we're going to be discussing with “Canine Lymphoma” a couple of things. One, going back to what I had said previously, the idea of immunophenotyping and why it's important, and why that should be done by the primary care but most of the lecture is going to focus on the new novel drug called Laverdia-CA1, and this is an oral anticancer drug. It's not on the same level as what we call chemotherapy, where I think of chemotherapy as like a shotgun. When chemotherapy enters the body, it kills all cells that are growing. Now, cancer generally grows faster than most cells, so that's [what] it preferentially kills, but clearly other cells that grow, such as hair, such as immune system cells, and GI tract cells can be affected by it and that's why we see those adverse events.

[Laverdia-CA1] is a much more targeted drug, and the data suggests that this drug will work for dogs with lymphoma. The beauty of it, it is an oral medication, so if we were tasked with, you and I, the idea of creating the perfect drug for a primary care doctor, the first thing we'd want is something that's going to be oral—so we're not having to give injections, place catheters—and something that's convenient. This is given twice a week, with 3 days off in between: that's incredibly convenient.

We also want something that doesn't have a lot of side effects, and the side effect profile is very favorable. Based upon the studies that have been done, no dogs have been taken off the study due to severity of adverse events, so it means that it's a safe drug. The final thing we want is it's got to work, and clearly this drug does. We know for the average dog, it may hold the disease for about 3 months or so. So it's not meant to be a silver bullet, a cure-all for lymphoma. More likely in the future, oncologists will be combining it with other agents in other types of protocols, but to me, knowing that 80% of lymphomas are left untreated, this gives the primary care a game changer—something else that they can utilize, other than just prednisone.