Domestic Animal Models of Central Nervous System Tumors: Focus on Meningiomas

Abstract

Intracranial primary tumors (IPTs) are aggressive forms of malignancies that cause high mortality in both humans and domestic animals. Meningiomas are frequent adult IPTs in humans, dogs, and cats, and both benign and malignant forms cause a decrease in life quality and survival. Surgery is the primary therapeutic approach to treat meningiomas, but, in many cases, it is not resolutive. The chemotherapy and targeted therapy used to treat meningiomas also display low efficacy and many side effects. Therefore, it is essential to find novel pharmacological approaches to increase the spectrum of therapeutic options for meningiomas. This review analyzes the similarities between human and domestic animal (dogs and cats) meningiomas by evaluating the molecular and histological characteristics, diagnosis criteria, and treatment options and highlighting possible research areas to identify novel targets and pharmacological approaches, which are useful for the diagnosis and therapy of this neoplasia to be used in human and veterinary medicine.