The Role of Clinical Studies for Pets with Naturally Occurring Tumors in Translational Cancer Research
Recently, there has been renewed interest in comparative oncology— the study of naturally developing cancers in animals as models for human disease—as one way to improve cancer drug development and reduce attrition of investigational agents.
Purebred Golden Retriever dog outdoors on a sunny summer day.
Tumors that spontaneously develop in pet dogs and other companion animals as a result of normal aging share many characteristics with human cancers, such as histological appearance, tumor genetics, biological behavior, molecular targets, and therapeutic response. They also exhibit acquired resistance, recurrence, and metastasis, similar to human cancers.
The Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium was established to provide the infrastructure and resources needed to integrate clinical trials for pets with naturally occurring cancers into the development pathways for new drugs, devices, and imaging techniques for human cancers. However, the cancer research community has not reached agreement concerning the value of these clinical trial data for advancing human cancer research or when and how best to integrate comparative oncology trials within the cancer research continuum. Thus, the Institute of Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Forum, with support from a coalition of sponsors, hosted a workshop held in Washington, DC, on June 8–9, 2015, to examine the rationale and potential for integrating clinical trials for pet patients with naturally occurring cancers into translational cancer research and development. The workshop also highlighted potential opportunities to overcome existing challenges to that integration.
The workshop also reviewed the role of “One Health” in comparative oncology, see below:
The “one medicine” concept is a core principle underpinning the inclusion of clinical trials for pet animals in the cancer research continuum, said Matthew Breen from North Carolina State University. The idea behind “one medicine” is that collaboration among multiple disciplines in animal and human health can contribute to producing the optimal health for both. The mouse is the traditional preclinical research model for cancer, but the induced or transplanted tumors studied in mice are not naturally occurring. Additionally, many preclinical cancer studies are conducted in immunoincompetent mice, while spontaneous canine tumors occur in animals with intact immune systems, making them more similar to human cancers.
The types of cancers that affect people also naturally occur in pets, so knowledge gained from clinical trials for pet patients with spontaneous tumors can complement the traditional approach to preclinical cancer research prior to conducting trials for human patients. In particular, Breen said, certain dog breeds are highly affected by certain naturally occurring cancers, and this suggests that dog breeds have an inherited predisposition to those cancers. The fact that canine cancers show some breed predispositions provides a powerful research opportunity to identify the genetic factors that underlie these predispositions in dogs and simultaneously to contribute to advancing cancer research in humans. Additionally, these naturally occurring cancers develop in the same environment as those in humans.
Visit the website and read the full workshop report at: http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2015/The-Role-of-Clinical-Studies-Pets-Naturally-Occurring-Tumors-Transitional-Cancer-Research.aspx
