About this Research Topic

Background

In the last years, research on STS in dogs has shown a considerable lack of homogeneity in the studies on this group of spontaneous neoplasms. On the basis of these perplexities, the international scientific community is still using the term "Soft Tissue Sarcomas" to describe the group of sarcomas that, although of different histotypes, seem to share a similar biological behavior. The study elaborated by Kuntz et al. in 1997 is still a reference for the clinical staging and prognosis of canine STS; based on this, the following research has focused the interest on the possible adjuvant therapies especially in patients with incomplete surgical margins. Indeed, in light of this paper, clinical trials focused on the impact of radiotherapy, radiotherapy plus low-dose chemotherapy, early post-surgical resection or intralesional chemotherapy to reduce the local recurrence rate. Although many clinical studies continue to use the terminology “soft tissue sarcomas” in their papers without looking for specific histotypes, the future for soft tissue sarcomas in dogs as well as for other neoplasms, is directed towards therapeutic strategies such as targeted therapies or immunotherapy starting first from the diagnosis of the histotype, moving on to association with biological behavior, prognostic factors associated with outcome.

Ideal anticancer therapies should be highly efficacious, widely available at low cost, and associated with a minor risk of causing adverse events: there are currently few studies about electrochemotherapy for the treatment of canine soft tissue sarcomas and none directly compared the electroporation to other standard anticancer treatments. It has been well documented in the literature that ECT can be effective as a one-time treatment, and also, further ECT treatments can be performed to improve the local antitumor effect, but there is still no consensus on when is the best time for retreatment. Eventually, the different clinical responses to treatment observed individually remain to be elucidated with the identification of possible biomarkers that would enable a better selection of the patients that will benefit from a specific treatment, also predicting the response to treatment and recurrence rates. The use of ECT has also been widely studied in human medicine, especially for local control of oral cavity tumors and for neoplasms of the head and neck region. Recently, ECT has also been investigated as a treatment for oral cavity tumors in dogs, in particular for malignant melanoma and SCC. In conclusion, despite the emerging evidence of the clinical efficacy of ECT treatments for various tumors type in pets, ECT should not be considered as a substitute for standard therapies (such as wide margins surgery or the combination of surgery and radiotherapy) yet.

The aim of our current Research Topic is to describe the efficacy and tolerability of repeated ECT application coupled with bleomycin for the local tumor control of canine STS and also as a rescue treatment in oral and maxillofacial tumors.

The main areas to be included in this Research Topic, but not exclusively limited to, are:

- New insight in STS
- Diagnostic procedures for canine STS
- Surgical treatment of canine STS
- Alternative Option for treatment of STS
- Electrochemotherapy as a monotherapy in STS
- Electrochemotherapy as a rescue therapy in oral and maxillofacial tumors in dogs

Keywords: electrochemotherapy, tumours, soft tissue sarcoma, dog, diagnostic tools

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