New Treatment for Canine Melanoma Shows Promise

By Caroline Coile

Melanomas are the most common oral cancers in dogs. Unfortunately, they come with a poor prognosis. They are highly metastatic and conventional chemotherapy does not increase survival time.

Human oral melanomas are very similar to canine ones. In people, these tumors have been responding to a combination of immune inhibitors and radiotherapy. Immunotherapy targets molecules that tumors employ to suppress the immune response. Now researchers led by Professor Satoru Konnai at Hokkaido University has investigated this same therapy in dogs with encouraging results.

The team analyzed data from 38 dogs with Stage 4 oral malignant melanoma. They found that the dogs that received first radiotherapy, followed by a type of immunotherapy called antibody c4G12 had better overall survival compared to dogs that received radiation alone or concurrent radiation and immunotherapy.

Future work will replicate the findings with more dogs, and pin down the optimal protocol for the two treatment method, for optimal survival.

Tatsuya D., et al: Enhanced Systemic Antitumour Immunity by Hypofractionated Radiotherapy and Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in Dogs with Pulmonary Metastatic Oral Malignant Melanoma. Cancers, 2023; 15 (11): 3013 DOI: 10.3390/cancers15113013

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=268265

Posted by Liz on Jul 21 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.