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Brain tumor treatment in dogs contributes to answers for humans
The UMN’s Canine Brain Tumor Clinical Trial Program offers cutting-edge treatment to pups, while also providing data to help people with brain tumors.
MINNEAPOLIS — Dogs have been man’s best friend for thousands of years. They’ve evolved with us, eaten our food and herded our animals.
Now, they could help us treat cancer.
The Canine Brain Tumor Clinical Trial Program at the University of Minnesota started up 15 years ago with a goal of offering cancer therapy to dogs that will extend the life of the pet, while allowing them to also have a good quality of life.
The information gained from treating those dogs are then used to help people diagnosed with aggressive brain tumors.
Dr. Elizabeth Pluhar helped found the clinical trial program and is now the director for the program. Her team has been studying how a combination of immunotherapy and surgery impacts canine gliomas, a type of brain tumor that arises from the brain tissue itself.
“With high-grade gliomas, the prognosis is terrible if you don’t do anything at all,” said Pluhar. “Or if you do surgery alone, if it is a high-grade glioma in dogs, the dogs live, on average, two months.”
But Pluhar said the therapies the university have shown promising results.
Many times her team manages to give the dog longer. If dogs have low-grade gliomas, they can even live out the rest of their lives without tumor recurrence. While this treatment doesn’t cure dogs of the tumor, in many cases, they can control this with a good quality of life.
Most treatments associated with the studies are free to the owners.
“We’re starting to push to get in longer times with high-grade glioma, but we’re still looking for new things to combine together to try to get even longer survival times,” said Pluhar.
Davis Hawn considers Dr. Pluhar an angel. Man’s best friend is the simplest way to describe how he feels about his service dogs.
“They make my worst day feel like sometimes my best day,” he said.
Hawn said his service dogs have saved him in many ways. But his previous pup, Booster, was the friend who needed saving at one point.
“He had two weeks to live and I was devastated,” recalled Hawn, who was traveling with Booster. “The vet on a plane noticed the bulk of my dog’s head — he had squamous cell carcinoma”
He sent Booster’s MRI out to different veterinary centers around the country.
“I got a call one day from an angel,” said Davis. “A Dr. Elizabeth Pluhar.”
“We developed a vaccine and they treated Booster with the vaccines that we made, and Booster went on to stay cancer free for a very, very long time,” said Pluhar.
Booster and Hawn went on to travel the world together, and Hawn said Booster inspired him to push through his own cancer diagnosis.
“I wouldn’t be here today, if not for my dog, if not for the University of Minnesota,” said Hawn.
Booster is just one of the hundreds of dogs who have contributed and benefited from the University of Minnesota’s canine brain tumor program.
When Jessica Sigecan learned her dog, Bruce, had a brain tumor, her world stopped spinning.
“Bruce has given us so much over the past five years, and I’m certainly not ready to say goodbye,” she said.
She was ecstatic when she learned the University of Minnesota was currently enrolling French bulldogs with high-grade gliomas for sonodynamic therapy or treatment involving ultrasounds. This breed in particular responds to immunotherapies differently.
At one point, she got the news that Bruce’s tumor could no longer be detected.
“They have accomplished something, nothing short, I would consider a miracle,” she said. “And I just cannot convey how grateful I am for more time with this dog that we love, from the bottom of our hearts.”
But months after the interview, Bruce passed away.
Despite the outcome, Sigecan said Dr. Pluhar and her team gave her more time with Bruce who continued to be his usual self for most of the time after treatment.
“I just continue to thank them for everything they’re doing,” she said.
On the human side of the program is Dr. Elizabeth Neil, a neuro-oncologist and clinical researcher with the University of Minnesota and M Health Fairview.
“Dr. Pluhar is doing such amazing work in canines with brain cancer,” said Neil. “She allows these pets to have access to cutting-edge treatment options and I’m able to take that data, translate it into trials that can potentially benefit people.”
Neil said pups serve as an excellent model for the concept, as they’re evolved with us for thousands of years.
“They’ve been breathing the same air, drinking the same water — sometimes eating our same food,” she said.
In 2019, the first human clinical trial of its kind began using comparative oncology and research from Pluhar’s team.
Nine patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, were enrolled.
“We entered into the clinical trial, we had a profound sense of confidence knowing that our starting dose was going to be safe.” said Neil.
One of those patients was Dustin Davey.
“He’s probably the funniest person I will ever know,” said Claire Davey, his wife. “His coworkers would call him smiley just because he was always just such an upbeat and easygoing person.”
Davey said it was an easy decision for her husband to be part of the clinical trial.
“He wanted to contribute to the science,” she said. “Dustin’s quality of life was really great during the time he was in the trial, for a couple of reasons. First, the medication itself didn’t have any side effects for Dustin, which was incredible, because a lot of the alternative treatments like chemo or radiation would have certainly had side effects that would have worn on his quality of life. And then secondly, it provided a lot of hope that we wouldn’t have really had otherwise.”
Dustin was 34 when he died.
“None of the patients who are enrolled in the study are currently alive,” said Neil. “And so while it was a win, and the fact that we were safely able to introduce this new treatment, we still have a long ways to go to understand how we can make it more effective.”
Neil said that eventually, they hope to restart another clinical trial.
Both Claire and Jessica said that despite losing friends and loved ones, they would encourage other families to trust in the University’s research.
“He left a legacy contributing to science and hopefully a cure to this disease some day,” said Davey.
Because one day, they believe man’s best friend will save the man.
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The newly elected board unanimously accepted it during a special board meeting Thursday night.
BURNSVILLE, Minn — STEP Academy officials said the school is taking steps to pay off its debt after letting go teachers, administrators, and people who worked in operations to balance their budget.
“We’re very sad we had to reduce our budget based on our enrollment but that was a necessary step so that we could stay financially secure,” said Paul Scanlon, STEP Academy’s chief operations officer.
Scanlon corrected a statement made by the St. Paul charter school’s finance director on Monday who said the school has an operating budget deficit of $2.1 million.
“It’s projected by the end of the year that it will roughly – 2.1% of our overall budget. It’s not 2.1 thousand or 2.1 million,” Scanlon said.
He said that’s roughly $275,000, which is how much debt the charter school will have by the end of the academic year.
“Through careful financing, we’ve been able to pay off some of our debt and get that number lower and lower,” he said.
Scanlon said under the Minnesota Department of Education, a school must be at least -2.5% to be considered in statutory operational debt.
The newly elected board started on Monday. Scanlon said there was some confusion about their appointment, but he said the plan was to seat them at their annual meeting on Oct. 21. He said all of the new board members were elected to their positions.
“Candidates nominated or being nominated for the positions to expand the expertise and size our of board took several weeks of getting the nominations and having ballots prepared,” he said.
The board unanimously voted to accept Superintendent Mustafa Ibrahim’s resignation. He said his last day will be Nov. 4. In his letter, he said “my time leading STEP Academy has been the most rewarding period of my career.”
Scanlon said they will not be looking for an immediate replacement.
“At this time based on our finances, based on the strength that we’re seeing from our two principals on both sites, we feel like we can cover many of those components and then we would look to post for the 25-26 school year,” he said.
The board also approved an Ad Hoc committee’s report on the job description of the superintendent of educational services for when they do hire someone for that role.
The board unanimously voted to postpone filling two school board vacancies until they have appointed a chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer. They’ll discuss it again at their next meeting, and possibly decide how they want to fill those seats.
“We’re 50 ahead of where we were, 50 deaths,” Mike Hanson said. “50 families who have lost a loved one more than we were at this time last year.”
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s a frustrating trend for Mike Hanson, director of the Office of Traffic Safety within the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
“Anytime I see an incident like the one that took place last night, I’m angry,” Hanson said. “It’s really hard to put into words, because this is exactly the type of thing that we work to prevent.”
Wednesday night, a 29-year-old man from St. Paul exited eastbound I-94 onto Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis. The crash report says that man was traveling at a “high rate of speed.” That man hit several cars, killing a 26-year-old Minneapolis woman and injuring several others.
“That is the one thing that makes every bad decision worse, because speed brings energy, and energy is what results in injury and death,” Hanson said.
Data provided by DPS shows that there have been nearly 150 accidents in and near the area where this happened since January 2021. Some don’t involve alcohol, some do. Hanson said it’s their goal to make sure alcohol is never a factor.
“There is literally no excuse today for somebody to wind up in the back seat of a squad car, an ambulance or heaven forbid a hearse, because of an impaired driving decision,” he said.
Unfortunately, data shows that fatal accidents are up in Minnesota so far this year.
“We’re 50 ahead of where we were, 50 deaths,” Hanson said. “50 families who have lost a loved one more than we were at this time last year.”
Hanson said they work with different agencies across the state to help assist with education and prevention before anyone gets behind the wheel impaired.
“Our basic message is impaired is impaired. It doesn’t matter what it is that you’re impaired by, if you feel different, you will drive different,” he said. “And if you’re sitting behind the wheel and you have to ask yourself should I drive? It’s already too late.”
Police said the suspect in an alleged armed burglary is described similarly to someone who was reportedly looking into windows in the city earlier the same day.
BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — Police in Brooklyn Park are urging residents to make sure their windows and doors are locked after an alleged armed burglary in the city on Thursday.
According to police, residents on the 1700 block of 73rd Ave N. were coming home around 7:30 p.m. when they discovered a man in their home. The man pointed a gun at them and then fled, officials said.
The suspect is described by law enforcement as Black, 5’9 or 5’10, a skinny build, with a beard. He was reportedly wearing a black hoodie and pants.
Police said a man with a similar description was reportedly looking into windows and trying door handles around the 7500 block of Newton Ave N and Meadowwood Drive earlier on Thursday. In that case, the suspect was wearing a black hoodie with white lettering, a black coat with red sleeves, and light-colored pants, officials said.
“In light of these incidents, Brooklyn Park Police are urging residents in the area to ensure that all windows and doors are securely locked,” an alert from police said, adding if anyone notices “suspicious activity” they should call 911.
Brooklyn Center Police had similar sightings as well, according to law enforcement.
