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Pet owners are demanding increasingly advanced care for their pets totreat diseases like diabetes, heart disease, orthopedic problems and cancer,according to the American Veterinary Medical Association's "U.S. Pet Ownership& Demographics Sourcebook." Today, many pets that would have been euthanizedin the past are being saved by veterinarians. And these new treatments forpets often translate into new treatments for humans.
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"Our work could have enormous impacts on human medicine. I'm alreadygetting letters from people who want this surgery," explains DenisMarcellin-Little, a veterinarian at the North Carolina State University (NCSU)College of Veterinary Medicine.
After a German shepherd known as Cassidy refused traditional strap-onprosthetics for a missing hind leg, Cassidy's owners asked for a permanent legreplacement. Dr. Marcellin-Little's team at NCSU applied a revolutionarysolution -- attaching a new carbon fiber leg directly to the bone with atitanium fitting. This new process uses computed tomography (CT) scans toengineer three-dimensional implants to perfectly fit the patient's bones.
Dr. Marcellin-Little's procedure has already been used to implant limbs ontwo cats and to create a plate for the roof of a dog's mouth. Someday, it'sexpected to help build prosthetics that function like real limbs for humanpatients.
Likewise, Dr. James Cook, a veterinarian at the University of Missouri,led a research team that developed the BioDuct Meniscal Fixation Device, whichwill allow people with knee injuries to avoid arthritis and have better jointfunction. The device helps heal the meniscus, a buffer of cartilage betweenbones in the knee joint, by transporting blood cells to the area to promotehealing.
Dr. Cook and researchers on his team have performed joint surgery on25 dogs using the new device, and each of the animals had partial or completehealing of the joint cartilage a few weeks after surgery. It's now earnedU.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for human medicine.
SOURCE American Veterinary Medical Association
