From Diagnosis to Discovery: Charting a New Course for Hemangiosarcoma Treatment

If you’ve ever had a dog with hemangiosarcoma, you know how devastating it can be.

Often called the “silent killer,” hemangiosarcoma is a cancer of the cells that line blood vessels. It can appear anywhere in the body, but most commonly develops in the spleen and heart. The disease gets its nickname because it rarely shows signs until it is too late—many dogs with large tumors seem healthy until the disease is already advanced and untreatable.

Once hemangiosarcoma spreads to vital organs, there is no cure. But research is underway to change that.

With support from the AKC Canine Health Foundation, leading veterinary researchers at Ethos Discovery and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are studying large populations of dogs to gain deeper insights into this aggressive cancer and explore more effective treatments.

At Ethos Discovery, Chand Khanna, DVM, PhD, and his team are leading a nationwide clinical trial involving over 450 dogs diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma of the spleen. They are working to answer questions like:

• Can specific molecular markers in a dog predict how the disease will progress?
• Can dogs be grouped by specific genes to figure out which treatments are more likely to work for each group—bringing more precision medicine to veterinary cancer treatment?
• Can new treatments be developed to prevent the cancer from spreading and help dogs live longer?

This clinical trial goes beyond the Ethos hospital network. Families across the country can enroll their dogs at participating clinics, where every enrolled dog receives both standard treatment and a new investigational drug. 

Early results are promising - the research team has already identified four distinct genomic subgroups of the cancer.

At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Drs. Alexandre B. Le Roux and Ronan Chaligné are investigating cellular markers across different hemangiosarcoma subtypes. Their goal is to identify which cancer cells are most susceptible to specific treatments. Because traditional cancer therapies often damage healthy tissues too, their work could lead to more targeted treatments—ones designed to only attack cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.

Together, these studies represent an important step toward improving how we understand, diagnose, and treat canine hemangiosarcoma—offering hope for better outcomes and more time with the dogs we love.