Cancer Care Center for Pets Opens Soon in Wentzville

Local pet owners whose animals are suffering from cancer now have an additional reason for hope.

With the University of Missouri expanding its veterinary college animal cancer treatment center from one location in Columbia to another branch in Wentzville, dog and cat owners need not gear up for a cross-state drive to provide their animals with radiation therapy at a Mizzou facility.

The Mizzou Animal Cancer Care center will be located at 1092 Wentzville Parkway in what was once a cancer treatment center for humans. The 9,500-square-foot facility will be capable of managing 10 to 15 animal treatments per day, said Dr. David Wilson, a Mizzou professor and the director of the veterinary medical teaching hospital.

“We’re shooting for a June 1 opening date,” Wilson said.

With a growing demand for such a facility in the region, Mizzou found the building in to be a convenient location for cancer treatment operations.

“A good portion of our clients at the University of Missouri come from the St. Louis area,” Wilson said. “We had lots of comments from clients and referring vets that ‘If you were closer we could do this, but you’re too far away.’”

Because the facility was used to treat cancer before, it features a vault housing a linear accelerator. The veterinarians will use this equipment for radiation therapy.

Despite the marked difference in life spans and other biological factors, dogs and humans experience similar types of cancer--leukemia, lymphoma and even breast cancer--at similar rates, Wilson said. Like humans, advances in health care have dogs living longer than before.

“They’re becoming more members of the family,” Wilson said. “They’re living in houses rather than out roaming around. Most are well cared for these days.”

With better health care comes more options for animal cancer treatment, along with ways to pay for it.

“Pet insurance is slowly increasing,” Wilson said. “We have many clients that have insurance, but it’s not the majority.”

The Mizzou Animal Cancer Care center will be a referral-only option for pets already diagnosed by their primary veterinarians. Treatments can be scheduled as frequently as daily, depending on the type of cancer and the pet owners’ availability.

Although the veterinarians will work to provide the best possible cancer treatment for each dog and cat, the choice to shell out the money for treatments rather than putting an animal to sleep is ultimately the owner’s, Wilson said. The cost of treatments usually does not exceed $5,000.

“What is affordable for me might be different from you, might be different from someone else,” he said. “We try to steer clear of saying ‘You should do this treatment.’”