Dog Lymphoma Treatment Cost: $3,600 to $16,000

A dog lymphoma treatment costs $3,600 to $16,000 in the United States, and $5,254 is the typical price. Regionally the typical price runs from $4,624 in the Midwest to $7,040 in California — a 1.5x spread for the same procedure.

CHOP is sixteen treatments over nineteen to twenty-five weeks

That structure is the price. Dr. Kevin Choy, a veterinary oncologist, describes CHOP as four chemotherapy drugs given as roughly sixteen treatments across a nineteen to twenty-five week protocol.

At NC State's published $600 to $800 per treatment, sixteen visits would be $9,600 to $12,800. NC State's own published total for the protocol is $6,000 to $8,000.

The two reconcile because not every week is a hospital visit. The cheaper weeks are the ones where cyclophosphamide is taken at home, which costs the price of tablets rather than the price of an appointment.

That is worth knowing before you divide a quoted total by sixteen and conclude something is wrong with it.

B-cell and T-cell are different price lists

NC State publishes median survival of about 12 months for B-cell disease and 6 to 9 months for T-cell on a standard protocol.

Dr. Choy is blunter about the treatment implication: a resistant type such as T-cell should not be treated with CHOP at all, but with a LOP or MOP based protocol.

So immunophenotype is not only a prognosis. It changes which protocol is appropriate, and therefore which price list applies to your dog.

A quote given before the lymphoma has been typed is a quote for a protocol nobody has yet decided on.

Typing the disease costs $35 to $43 at the laboratory

Immunohistochemistry is what separates B-cell from T-cell. Iowa State charges $35.00 and the University of Missouri $43.00 — laboratory fees to the practice, not owner-facing prices.

The cytology that establishes lymphoma in the first place is similarly cheap at the laboratory: $48.50 for a cytological examination at the University of Missouri, $72.00 where multiple lymph nodes are sampled.

Those are the smallest numbers on this page and they steer the largest ones. Our dog biopsy cost page explains the gap between what a laboratory charges a practice and what appears on an owner's invoice.

The staging around them is where the money goes. NC State prices a typical first visit at $1,800 to $2,500 and its oncology consultation at approximately $353; Colorado State's Flint Animal Cancer Center publishes $278.00 plus a $15.00 environmental cleaning fee.

Where the $3,600 floor comes from

Not from a survey. It is six single-agent doxorubicin treatments at NC State's published $600 each.

Single-agent doxorubicin is a real protocol and a real choice, usually made when the full CHOP schedule is not affordable or not appropriate. It is fewer visits, fewer drugs and a shorter course.

That is why the floor on this page sits well above the floor on our chemotherapy page, which starts at $1,800 for six months of oral treatment. Lymphoma protocols are not the cheapest thing chemotherapy is used for.

Everything below $3,600 in this diagnosis is palliative rather than curative in intent, and NC State prices that separately at $20 to $30 a month for prednisone alone.

The hospital you choose moves this more than the state you live in

NC State publishes $6,000 to $8,000 for CHOP. Dr. Choy puts the same protocol at his own hospital at $8,000 to $16,000 and above. Both are academic centres.

A two-to-one gap between two teaching hospitals is larger than any regional difference in the table below, where the widest ratio is California at 1.34 times the national average.

There is a further caution about that table. Its regional rows come from a real fifty-state survey of canine lymphoma therapy, but the ratios it yields — 1.08, 0.88, 0.89, 1.02 and 1.34 — match every other CareCredit fifty-state table we have measured to two decimal places.

That means it is one geographic index applied to a national average rather than fifty independent surveys. Use it as a cost-of-living adjustment and get a second quote instead of moving state.

The lines that sit on top of the protocol total

L-asparaginase adds approximately $300 to the expected cost of the visit it is given in, and it is not given every week.

Tanovea is $800 to $1,000 per treatment where it is used. Neither is inside NC State's headline $6,000 to $8,000 unless the protocol you are quoted includes them.

So the useful request on the first call is the week-by-week schedule with the drugs named against each week, rather than a single total.

What a relapse costs

A second full course, and it is the number missing from every other page on this diagnosis. NC State publishes its rescue protocols separately: $600 to $900 per treatment, $6,500 to $8,500 over fifteen weeks for one protocol, $2,500 for the first two treatments of another, and $1,500 per treatment for a third.

Tanovea is $800 to $1,000 per treatment. Laverdia combined with prednisone is $450 to $650 a month against $20 to $30 for prednisone alone.

Nothing in the headline range on this page assumes a relapse. The honest ceiling for a dog that relapses is higher than $16,000.

Plan the first protocol knowing a second one exists. That is a different financial decision from planning as though the first course is the whole of it.

What the money buys, in months

NC State publishes median survival of about 12 months for B-cell lymphoma and 6 to 9 months for T-cell on a standard protocol.

Set that against the published protocol totals and the arithmetic is uncomfortable but clear: $6,000 to $8,000 at NC State, or $8,000 to $16,000 at the hospital Dr. Choy describes, for a median of around a year in the more responsive form.

Those are medians, not guarantees, and half of dogs fall on either side of them.

We publish the numbers together because the decision is made with both in hand or it is not really made at all. No page that gives only the price is giving you the choice.

What does it cost not to treat a dog's lymphoma?

NC State lists prednisone alone at $20 to $30 a month. It is on a teaching hospital's published price list because it is a real choice that owners make, not because it is a treatment.

It does not extend life the way chemotherapy does. What it buys is a period of feeling better at a cost measured in tens of dollars a month rather than thousands.

Setting that number beside the protocol total is the comparison most owners are actually making, and it deserves to be made with real figures on both sides rather than with one.

Ask too whether rechecks and bloodwork between treatments are inside any total you are quoted, because on a nineteen to twenty-five week protocol those visits are numerous enough to matter.

Where the neighbouring pages pick up

This page prices one diagnosis from staging through relapse. What chemotherapy costs as a treatment across cancers — the oral-versus-intravenous economics, the full drug list, what a single treatment costs — is on dog chemotherapy cost.

Feline lymphoma is a different disease economically, because the commonest form is treated with tablets at home and outlives the expensive form; cat chemotherapy cost covers it and names the price nobody publishes.

Radiation is not in this range. NC State publishes it separately at $10,000 to $12,000, and stereotactic radiation at $12,000 to $15,000. The vet cost index holds the rest of the set.

Dog Lymphoma Treatment cost by region

These are the prices behind the range at the top of the page, one row per geography we could source. The basis column says how each row was arrived at.

What changes the price

Two invoices for the same procedure diverge for a small number of reasons. These are the ones that move the total most.

B-cell or T-cell disease

NC State publishes median survival of 12 months for B-cell and 6-9 months for T-cell on a standard protocol. Dr. Kevin Choy is blunter: a resistant type like T-cell should not be treated with CHOP at all, but with a LOP or MOP based protocol, which is a different price list

How many treatments the protocol contains

Dr. Choy: CHOP is four drugs and 'essentially 16 treatments given over a 19 to 25 week protocol'. At NC State's $600-$800 per treatment that is $9,600-$12,800 of drug visits alone, which is why its own protocol total is quoted at $6,000-$8,000 - the cheaper weeks are the ones where cyclophosphamide is taken at home

Body weight of the dog

Chemotherapy is dosed by body surface area, so the drugs scale with the dog. NC State annotates the oral chemotherapy line on its own canine lymphoma price list 'Varies based on body weight', and the same arithmetic runs through every injectable dose in the protocol

Which hospital runs it

NC State publishes $6,000-$8,000 for CHOP; Dr. Choy puts the same protocol at his hospital at $8,000 to $16,000 plus. That two-to-one gap between two academic centres is larger than any regional cost-of-living difference in the table above

The staging workup before treatment

NC State prices a typical first visit at $1,800-$2,500, plus approximately $353 for the oncology consultation. Typing the lymphoma adds an immunohistochemistry fee, which two university laboratories publish at $35.00 and $43.00

Whether the lymphoma relapses

Rescue protocols are a second full course. NC State publishes $600-$900 per treatment, $6,500-$8,500 over fifteen weeks for one, $2,500 for the first two treatments of another, and $1,500 per treatment for a third

Whether you treat at all

NC State lists prednisone alone at $20-$30 a month. It is not a treatment and it does not extend life the way chemotherapy does, but it is on the published price list because it is a real choice owners make

What the itemized invoice looks like

Clinics quote a bundled number and itemize afterwards. This is the decomposition, so you can read a real estimate line by line before you sign it.

CHOP is four different chemotherapy drugs... and there are essentially 16 treatments given over a 19 to 25 week protocol.Dr. Kevin Choy, veterinary oncologist, in a Canine Cancer Alliance webinar on canine lymphoma

Does pet insurance cover dog lymphoma treatment?

Dog Lymphoma Treatment is normally covered by a standard accident-and-illness policy. Lymphoma is covered by an accident-and-illness policy where no sign of it was recorded before enrolment or during the waiting period. This diagnosis is the clearest case in the dataset for reading the annual limit rather than the reimbursement percentage: a $5,000 annual limit does not reach NC State's $6,000-$8,000 protocol, and it certainly does not reach the $8,000-$16,000 Dr. Choy quotes. A relapse in the following policy year starts a fresh limit but is not a fresh condition - it is the same lymphoma, so it stays covered only if the original diagnosis was.

What you would get back: 70-90% of the covered bill after the deductible, capped by the annual limit, which binds first on this diagnosis.

Coverage rules differ enough between carriers that the only useful answer is a side-by-side: our pet insurance comparison for dog lymphoma treatment shows which policies pay for it, what the waiting period is, and what counts as pre-existing.

Common questions

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• canine lipoma removal cost — Removing a fatty lump from a dog costs $250 to $1,800, and the first question is whether to remove it at all.
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• dog ruptured anal-gland abscess treatment cost — A ruptured dog anal gland abscess costs $100 to $1,000 per episode.
• dog anus gland removal cost — Dog anal gland removal costs $650 to $5,600 — an 8.6x spread across nine published fee sheets, the widest on this site.
• entropion in dogs surgery cost — Entropion surgery for dogs costs $125 to $3,000 and is priced per eyelid, not per dog.
• eye removal surgery for dogs cost — Dog eye removal costs $200 at a nonprofit clinic and $3,000 at a full-service hospital.
• cost of leg amputation for dog — Dog leg amputation costs $735 to $6,800.
• dog splenectomy cost — Dog splenectomy costs $1,700 to $5,000 across seven published fee sheets.
• eye removal surgery cat cost — Cat eye removal costs $415 to $2,000, and both US clinics that split fees by species charge less for a cat than a dog.
• cat surgery costs — Cat surgery costs $350 to $6,282.
• dog tumor removal cost — Dog tumor removal costs $250 to $3,000, and histopathology is billed separately.
• cat pu surgery cost — Cat PU surgery costs $995 to $2,395 across thirteen published fee sheets.
• how much is a biopsy for a dog — A dog biopsy costs $144 to $1,110.
• cost of dog bladder stone surgery — Dog bladder stone surgery costs $587 to $5,000 across fifteen fee sheets.
• gastropexy cost — Gastropexy costs $600 to $2,200 planned and $2,200 to $7,500 as emergency bloat surgery.
• how much does it cost to fix paraphimosis in dogs — Fixing paraphimosis in dogs costs $300 to $1,500 on three published prices.
• cat cataracts surgery cost — Cat cataract surgery costs $2,000 to $2,500 per eye and $3,000 to $3,500 for both.
• broken leg dog surgery cost — Dog broken leg surgery costs $1,371 to $5,803.
• dog eye surgery cost — Dog eye surgery costs $300 to $6,700, and which operation your dog needs decides the bill.
• dog eyelid tumor removal cost — Removing an eyelid tumor from a dog costs $320 in general practice and $2,200 with an ophthalmologist.
• pyometra dog surgery cost — Dog pyometra surgery costs $500 to $4,000.
• salivary mucocele dog surgery cost — Salivary mucocele surgery in dogs costs $1,681 to $2,400 — three fee sheets within 1.4x.
• dog spinal surgery cost — Dog spinal surgery costs $2,500 to $15,000, and the MRI is billed first.
• cost of stenotic nares surgery — Stenotic nares surgery costs $485 to $1,519, a 3.1x spread between practices for the same short operation.
• how much are dog stitches — Dog stitches cost $182 to $2,600 because the word covers four different injuries.

Every procedure we have priced is listed on the vet cost index.

Sources

1. Canine Lymphoma — NC State College of Veterinary Medicine Veterinary Hospital, 2026.
2. Canine Lymphoma Rescue Protocols — NC State College of Veterinary Medicine Veterinary Hospital, 2026.
3. Medical Oncology Service — NC State College of Veterinary Medicine Veterinary Hospital, 2026.
4. How Much Does Chemotherapy Cost for Dogs and Cats? — CareCredit (Synchrony), 2026.
5. Canine Lymphoma with Dr. Kevin Choy — Canine Cancer Alliance, 2025.
6. Frequently Asked Questions — Flint Animal Cancer Center, Colorado State University, 2026.
7. Canine Tests and Fees — Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Missouri, 2026.
8. Clinical Pathology and Histopathology Fee Schedule — Department of Veterinary Pathology, Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, 2026.