title: Electrochemotherapy with cisplatin enhances local control after surgical ablation of fibrosarcoma in cats: an approach to improve the therapeutic index of highly toxic chemotherapy drugs.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cancer is one of the most difficult current health challenges, being responsible for millions of deaths yearly. Systemic chemotherapy is the most common therapeutic approach, and the prevailing orientation calls for the administration of the maximum tolerated dose; however, considerable limitations exist including toxicities to healthy tissues and low achievable drug concentrations at tumor sites. Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a tumor treatment that combines the systemic or local delivery of anticancer drugs with the application of permeabilizing electric pulses. In this article we evaluate the capability of ECT to allow the use of cisplatin despite its high toxicity in a spontaneous feline model of soft tissue sarcoma.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cohort of sixty-four cats with incompletely excised sarcomas were treated with cisplatin-based adjuvant ECT and monitored for side effects. Their response was compared to that of fourteen cats treated with surgery alone.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The toxicities were minimal and mostly treated symptomatically. ECT resulted in increased local control (median not reached at the time of writing) with a mean time to recurrence of 666 days versus 180 of controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that ECT is a safe and efficacious therapy for solid tumors; its use may be considered as part of strategies for the reintroduction of drugs with a narrow therapeutic index in the clinical protocols.
authors.affiliation: SAFU Department, Regina Elena Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy. info@enricospugnini.net
authors.forename: Enrico P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Spugnini
authors.forename: Sylvie M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Renaud
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Buglioni
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Carocci
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dragonetti
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Murace
authors.forename: Pierluigi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cardelli
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vincenzi
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baldi
authors.forename: Gennaro
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Citro
mesh_terms: D055011:Ablation Techniques; D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002415:Cats; D002945:Cisplatin / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D053672:Electrochemotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D005354:Fibrosarcoma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000601:surgery*; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D002945:Cisplatin