ONCOLOGY
A Dog’ s Chance
Could a new osteosarcoma treatment discovered by veterinary specialists work for humans?
There’ s not much difference between osteosarcoma in adolescent humans and osteosarcoma in dogs.
“ In terms of biological appearance, aggressiveness, difficulty to treat, canine and human osteosarcoma are remarkably similar,” says pediatric oncologist Carrye Cost, MD.
And cure rates aren’ t great— about 77 % in localized human cases *. In many relapsed cases, not much can be done.
At the Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine, one of the world’ s preeminent and best-resourced centers for the research and treatment of canine osteosarcoma, researchers identified that metastatic disease is driven by inflammatory monocyte activity. And they identified a class of drugs with potential: angiotensin receptor blockers, or ARBs. Normally used for high blood pressure, ARBs can also block inflammatory monocyte migration.
“ When they looked at the ARB alone the results were not that exciting,” says Dr. Cost.“ But when they combined it with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, they started to see some stabilization and shrinking of canine osteosarcoma. That’ s when they reached out to us.”
Part of what makes the research promising, says Dr. Cost, is that unlike in a lot of research involving animals, the canine cancers treated at CSU are spontaneous and naturally occurring.
“ These animals have an intact immune system and metabolism similar to humans,” she observes.“ There’ s a lot of correlation.”
Collaborating with both CSU and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Dr. Cost and her team got a phase 1 clinical trial underway last year in adolescent and young adult patients with relapsed and refractory osteosarcoma. The ARB and the tyrosine kinase inhibitor are both already approved and on the market.
Depending on enrollment, the trial will most likely be open for another two years.• * Based on SEER data
8 | CHILDREN’ S HOSPITAL COLORADO