Ask A Genius 1305: Experimental Cancer Treatment for His Dog: A DIY Approach
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/04
Rick Rosner: All right, so maybe we should do Rotten Tomatoes here, and I’ll tell you a crazy fucking thing I’m doing. All right, so you’ve met the brown dog, our white dog, and Frida and our brown dog, Rosie.
We inherited Rosie from Carol’s mom. Rosie is 14 and a half. She has a tumour growing on the back of her right rear leg—about two inches. We didn’t discover it right away because these dogs aren’t particularly cuddly, so we didn’t notice the tumour until it was about five centimetres at its largest point, with the other two axes measuring roughly three centimetres.
So, the dog gets an X-ray, a blood test, and a biopsy. It was a needle biopsy that was inconclusive but pointed in the direction of cancer. Then we talked to the vet, and Carol consulted her friends with cancer dogs. Everyone agreed that for a dog this old, the best course of action is to maximize her happiness in the time she has left. You don’t do chemo because it makes the dog miserable—and it costs, what, $8,000? You don’t do surgery because she’s 14 and a half and may not survive it. Even if she does, the recovery would be painful. Right now, the dog is happy, even perky, so we focus on keeping her comfortable.
I’ve been giving her a ton of Fisetin, a senolytic. A senolytic forces bad cells to self-destruct. Think of it as an internet bully—it intercepts damaged cells at various points in their life cycles and pushes them toward apoptosis. That’s where the cell realizes it’s too damaged to function and disintegrates.
Cancer cells, in theory, should also self-destruct when they become too damaged, but they manage to evade that process. They dance around the body’s natural defences. Fisetin, however, beats them on the head—like McFly, McFly!—and tells them, “It’s time to go.” It can slow down tumour growth and reduce the risk of metastasis. So, every day, I’ve been loading the dog up with Fisetin, trying to hold off the cancer and buy her some more time.
Then, I discovered another approach. Back in 1960, researchers experimented on 49 dogs with tumours. They tied off the tumours, cutting off their blood supply for about eight hours. The idea is that cancer cells are already weakened and less resilient than healthy cells. So, the cancer cells die off without a steady blood supply.
This particular tumour on the back of Rosie’s leg is ideal for this approach. I’ve been using rubber bands to pinch it off, cutting off the blood supply for one to four hours. The idea is that since cancer cells are weaker, they’ll die before the surrounding healthy cells. In that 1960 experiment, most of the dogs had positive outcomes. Their tumours mostly died off, and they avoided the pain and suffering that come with surgery, chemotherapy, or other aggressive treatments.
And the thing is, I don’t think tumours have nerves, so the process doesn’t seem to hurt her. She only seems to feel discomfort when I remove the rubber bands. So, I’ve been doing this. I’ve done it about six times for approximately 11 and a half hours.
The tumour hasn’t grown. It has swelled up temporarily and then returned down; it’s just normal inflammation. Once you damage a tumour, the body’s immune system kicks in and says, “Hey, there’s a bunch of dead tissue here; we should clean it out.” That temporary inflammation is just the body doing its job.
So, we’re seeing if this works. It’s my mad scientist experiment. We’ll see if we can slow down the tumour. I would think that if you cut off its blood supply… well, cancer eats up much oxygen because it’s growing, it’s being cancer. So, if you cut off its oxygen, it will mostly die.
Now, there’s a chance that because cancer cells are disordered and unstable, the tumour can essentially self-destruct. Some of the nastier tumours even develop necrotic areas within them, which is generally not a good sign because it means the tumour is in a state of disorganized chaos. Also, within the tumour, cancer cells can be adapted to survive in hypoxic (oxygen-starved) environments.
If you kill off only the hypoxia-friendly, weaker cells, you could leave behind the stronger, more aggressive cancer cells, which then take over and proliferate more. That’s the risk—you don’t want to eliminate the “wimpy” cancer cells and give the resilient ones free rein to go wild. But, in the meantime, it’s worth a shot to keep the tumour mostly dead. If it grows again, I’ll just hit it with the rubber bands, though Carol hates it.
So there you go.
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