See my thread at:
http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/sic...es-throat.html
Briefly, Skittles was diagnosed with lymphoma a few weeks ago. We are opting to pursue chemo with him and so far are having good results.
In more detail: The cancer had already spread to all of his surface lymph nodes before we caught it, which is not uncommon from what I understand. The protocol our vet is using is as follows:
week 1: Vincristine
week 2: Vincristine
week 3: Cytoxan
week 4: Doxorubicin
At the same time he is receiving high doses of Prednisone every day along 1/4th of a pepcid to control GI complications. At the conclusion of week 4 will be a resting period of, I think, 4 weeks, followed by more chemo. I am not sure what the mix of drugs is then.
Those are all rather common chemo drugs in humans (and the Wikipedia articles will give you a good enough explanation of how they work), particularly in lymphomas. Thus far we are noticing no side-effects through week 2, but of course every dog will respond differently. From what I have read and according to our vet dogs typically don't lose their hair during chemo, but can lose, for instance, whiskers.
When he went in for week 1, Skittles was slightly anemic (not unusual in lymphoma patients). By the time he went in for week 2 last Friday he was clinically in remission (though tests could probably still detect cancer at this point). His anemia had improved and he was so far not suffering from a loss of white blood cells. He did briefly have an issue with diarrhea but he took an antibiotic for a week and that cleared up. Other than that and a brief loss of appetite after week 1 he has, thus far, had no side-effects.
HTH and good luck to you.