Evaluation of dog owners perceptions concerning radiation therapy.docVIP

Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica BioMedCentral Brief communication Open Access Evaluation of dog owners perceptions concerning radiation therapy Nanna ?kerlund Denneberg*1 and Agneta Egenvall2 Address: 1J?nk?ping Small Animal Hospital Oskarshallsgatan 6, SE-553 03 J?nk?ping, Sweden and 2Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden Email: Nanna ?kerlund Denneberg* - nanna.denneberg@djursjukhuset-jonkoping.se; Agneta Egenvall - agneta.egenvall@kv.slu.se * Corresponding author Published: 29 April 2009 Received: 29 January 2008 Accepted: 29 April 2009 Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2009, 51:19 doi:10.1186/1751-0147-51-19 This article is available from: /content/51/1/19 ? 2009 Denneberg and Egenvall; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: External radiation therapy (RT) has been available for small animals in Sweden since 2006. This study was designed to obtain information on owner experiences and perceptions related to RT of cancer in their dogs. Another survey was used to determine the attitudes about use of RT in a group of Swedish veterinarians. Their responses were analyzed and compared to their level of knowledge of oncology and RT. Methods: Owners of all dogs (n = 23) who had undergone RT for malignancy at J?nk?ping Small Animal Hospital between March 2006 to September 2007 were interviewed. A questionnaire was given to a selected group of veterinarians. Results: All 23 owners responded. All owners thought that their dog did well during RT and most that their dog was also fine during the following phase when acute RT-related skin reactions occur and heal. Three owners stat