Research

Patterns of tumor response in canine and feline cancer patients treated with electrochemotherapy: preclinical data for the standardization of this treatment in pets and humans

Enrico P Spugnini¹ , Feliciano Baldi² , Pasquale Mellone² , Florinda Feroce² , Alfredo D'Avino² , Francesco Bonetto³ , Bruno Vincenzi⁴ , Gennaro Citro¹ and Alfonso Baldi^1,2

¹  S.A.F.U. Department, Regina Elena Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy

²  Department of Biochemistry, section of Pathology, Second University of Naples, Italy

³  Italian Ministry of Health, Department of Innovation, General Directorate for Medicines and Medical Device, Rome, Italy

⁴  Campus Biomedico University, section of Oncology, Rome, Italy

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Translational Medicine 2007, 5:48doi:10.1186/1479-5876-5-48

Published:	2 October 2007

Abstract

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a novel anticancer therapy that is currently being evaluated in human and pet cancer patients. ECT associates the administration of an anti-tumor agent to the delivery of trains of appropriate waveforms. The increased uptake of chemotherapy leads to apoptotic death of the neoplasm thus resulting in prolonged local control and extended survival. In this paper we describe the histological features of a broad array of spontaneous tumors of companion animals receiving pulse-mediated chemotherapy. Multivariate statistical analysis of the percentage of necrosis and apoptosis in the tumors before and after ECT treatment, shows that only a high percentage of necrosis and apoptosis after the ECT treatment were significantly correlated with longer survivals of the patients (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.004, respectively). Further studies on this topic are warranted in companion animals with spontaneous tumors to identify new molecular targets for electrochemotherapy and to the develop new therapeutical protocols to be translated to humans.