Hawaii dogs and cats could play a role in developing new cancer therapies for pets and people.

A Texas-based national cancer registry for animals is seeking pet owners from Hawaii and across the country to register their dogs and cats afflicted with cancer, who may be candidates for clinical trials testing cancer drugs.

Since cancers in humans are also found in dogs, the National Veterinary Cancer Registry could aid in developing cancer drugs for both animals and humans faster and more cost-effectively than studies in humans.

"We use the same drugs to treat them as in humans," said Dr. Theresa Fossum, a veterinary oncologist at Texas A&M who founded the registry.

The registry is driven by the cost of developing pharmaceuticals, which runs in the billions of dollars and may take 12 to 14 years to get a drug approved, she said.

"We think the value is that we’re able to find adverse events and risks earlier, and maybe in a dog population rather than after a multimillion-dollar human study," Fossum said. "We’ve been talking about it for years. Finally people are starting to see the value."

The registry is a joint effort between the CARE Foundation, Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and the Texas Veterinary Oncology Group.

The biggest obstacle in doing clinical trials is finding animals quickly and getting them enrolled in studies, Fossum said.

The registry provides information about naturally occurring diseases, how it progresses, when patients were diagnosed and how long they lived.

The downside to using lab mice is the disease is artificially induced, and rodents do not get the same types of cancer as humans.

The advantage to studying sick dogs and cats is they have intact immune systems, unlike in mouse studies in which the immune systems often have to be nonfunctioning, Fossum said.

By performing a clinical trial using dogs, a new drug could be tested as first-line therapy, whereas it cannot be tested as first-line therapy in humans, Fossum said.

"You really have to exhaust all standards of care before they’ll try to test a new drug (in humans)," she said. "If we know 50 percent (of sick dogs) respond, often owners will opt to try new therapy, especially if it’s not known to make a dog sick."

Often a drug will kill sensitive cancer cells, but doesn’t kill resistant cells, she said.

"They’ll grow up and that’s when you get a recurrence."

Animal cancer continues to rise. About 4 million dogs and cats (fewer felines than canines) develop cancer each year in the United States. It is the leading cause of death in older dogs and cats, but is treatable.

Lymphoma, the most common cancer in dogs, is very common in humans, Fossum said. Bone cancer, melanoma and lung cancer are all found in dogs as they are in humans.

Dr. Patrick Leadbeater, a veterinarian in Hawaii for 30 years, began treating canine cancer patients with chemotherapy about 25 years ago, and uses other treatments as well.

"We see cancer every day here," he said, but added that he has referrals from other practitioners throughout the state.

There appears to be a growing number of dogs with cancer, for reasons that are unclear.

In Hawaii, no radiation therapy is available for dogs to treat certain types of cancer, Leadbeater added.

Dr. Sarah McMillan, the first veterinary oncologist in Hawaii, arrived in August and has already seen more than 400 cancer patients.

She said most mainland cities of Honolulu’s size would have several oncologists and considers Hawaii underserved.

Cancer studies in dogs have looked for genetic markers and biomarkers. They have used dogs to narrow down the search in people.

With cancer, genetics plays a greater role in dogs than in humans, who have more diversity.

McMillan said 60 percent of golden retrievers see it in their lifetime, 10 percent more than the general dog population, while bladder cancer is 18 times more common in Scottish terriers.

She conducted a clinical trial for bladder cancer, which took two to three years, and required fewer dogs than would have been required for people.

A dog clinical trial costs between $500,000 and $1 million, whereas a similar human study could cost $20 million, McMillan said.

The registry is spreading, and Fossum hopes the registry will take hold in more states like Hawaii.

"The information collected from the registry will be used to advance the care and treatment of animals with cancers with the hope of matching animals with relevant clinical studies," the registry’s website says.

Ultimately the goal is to improve treatment of human and animal cancers by collecting and sharing the information regarding cancer therapies.

The registry also allows pet owners to connect with others who have similar diagnoses and discuss treatment options and outcomes, the registry website says.

For participants in clinical trials, pets can try out a new drug that may help when the cancer is resistant to other drugs, Fossum said.

The study may not be free, but usually the drugs, radiographs and bloodwork are covered, Fossum said.

Pharmaceutical companies are required to perform a safety study on nonpet dogs before a study is done in client-owned dogs.

"We won’t know if it works, but we’d like to know at least that it’s safe before testing on pets," Fossum said.

For more information and to enroll your pet in the registry, go to nationalveterinarycancerregistry.org.