Electrochemotherapy in veterinary medicine

Abstract

Electrochemotherapy is a treatment that combines electroporation, i.e. application of electric pulses to the tumors, that induces under suitable conditions reversible permeabilization of cell membrane and administration of nonpermeant or poorly permeant chemotherapeutic drugs with intracellular targets, whose entry into the cells is facilitated by electroporation. In veterinary medicine, the predominant chemotherapeutic drug used in electrochemotherapy is cisplatin, followed by bleomycin. In this review, the results of the studies performed at the University of Ljubljana, Veterinary faculty are presented. Spontaneous tumors of different origin in dogs, cats and horses were treated with electrochemotherapy using either cisplatin or bleomycin. Different electroporation protocols were used and the results on antitumor effectiveness compared. The results demonstrated that electrochemotherapy is highly effective and safe local treatment regardless of tumor histology, chemotherapeutic drug or electroporation protocol used. The advantages of this therapy are its simplicity, short duration of treatment sessions, low chemotherapeutic doses, and insignificant side effects, as well as the fact that that the patient does not have to stay in the hospital.