Melanoma Vaccine for Dogs May Aid Humans

[DoozyDog]

TUESDAY, Jan. 31 (HealthDay News) -- An anti-cancer vaccine for dogs with melanoma shows promise, and may help in the development of similar cancer treatments for humans.

The experimental canine anti-cancer vaccine has been produced at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine since 1998.

"Not all dogs with melanoma respond to this treatment. But those that do seem to do quite well," Ilene Kurzman, a researcher in the veterinary medical school's oncology section, said in a prepared statement.

Dog melanoma is very aggressive, and usually appears around the mouth or toes. Even with treatment, about 75 percent of dogs with oral melanoma die within a year.

About 40 percent of dogs with melanoma respond to this injected anti-cancer vaccine. Melanoma tumors completely disappeared in about 12.5 percent of dogs treated with the vaccine, the researchers said.

The vaccine is created from dog melanoma tumor cells grown in the laboratory. The cells are treated so they're no longer able to divide and cause a tumor. DNA inserted into the cells instructs them to secrete an immune stimulant. The combination of cells and immune stimulant is designed to stimulate the dog's immune system to fight melanoma cells, the researchers said.

The current results are promising, but funding problems prevent Kurzman and her colleagues from doing further research to improve the vaccine and increase the percentage of dogs that respond to it, the scientists said.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), melanoma accounts for about 4 percent of skin cancer cases, but it causes most skin cancer deaths. The number of new cases of melanoma in the United States is on the rise -- the ACS estimated that there were about 59,580 new cases of melanoma in 2005, and an estimated 7,770 people were expected to die of the disease.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: University of Wisconsin-Madison, news release, Jan. 26, 2006

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/ma...ticlekey=57658