Recent progress in canine tumor vaccination: potential applications for human tumor vaccines

Abstract

Tumor vaccination holds great promise for the treatment of cancer and research concerning tumor vaccination in dogs is of great interest for veterinary as well as human medicine. Indeed, cancer is the leading cause of death in adult dogs and companion animals are acknowledged as excellent preclinical models for human oncology. The license of the veterinary melanoma vaccine (Oncept™) and Provenge® for the treatment of prostate cancer in men established tumor vaccination as a valid treatment modality for cancer. Although the results with this and other vaccines are promising, there are still some hurdles to overcome. In this article, preclinical and clinical trials with tumor vaccines in dogs are discussed, as well as the surplus value of canine cancer patients for human medicine.

Keywords::

• dog
• fibrosarcoma
• immunotherapy
• lymphoma
• melanoma
• Oncept
• oncology
• osteosarcoma
• tumor model
• tumor vaccine
• veterinary

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by a grant of Ghent University (BOF) grant number 01D27911. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.