The goal for this project is to develop a reliable, accessible, and actionable test to identify dogs at risk for hemangiosarcoma during the earliest stages of disease and to use a strategic, rationally designed approach to prevent its occurrence in these high-risk dogs before it becomes clinically detrimental and life-threatening. The study has two objectives. The first is to determine the most reasonable duration of an SOS test result. In other words, how long can a low-risk SOS test result be trusted and how much time might elapse between a high-risk SOS test result and the development of hemangiosarcoma. The second aim is to continue periodic testing for dogs previously enrolled in the Shine On study whose test result would have placed them in a high-risk category for development of hemangiosarcoma, and to provide eBAT as a strategy for prevention in up to 12 of these dogs.
To complete the first objective, we are conducting surveys to determine the health status of every dog enrolled in Shine On phase-3 (SO3, the early detection phase) at 6-month intervals. This effort will continue throughout the duration of the study.
To complete the second objective, we have finalized the analysis of the data from Shine On phase-1 (SO1) (used as the “training set” for SOS test) and applied those results to dogs from SO3 to select candidates for continued, periodic testing. We have enrolled more than 60 dogs into the Shine On continuation (SOC). Owners of dogs that have been assigned to the high-risk category have been provided information about available screening, and they have been given the opportunity to complete screening, and if eligible, to enroll in eBAT prevention. To date, we have screened 32 dogs and nine have been eligible for – and enrolled in eBAT prevention. We have expanded the eligibility and continue our efforts to test and recruit subjects for the study. The data from these experiments will be aggregated and analyzed as described in the proposal.
The project has also been extremely successful in training the next generation of researchers with specific interest in canine health.