The Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium: Using Spontaneously Occurring Cancers in Dogs to Inform the Cancer Drug Development Pathway

Abstract

Chand Khanna and colleagues describe the work of the Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (COTC), which provides infrastructure and resources to integrate naturally occurring dog cancer models into the development of new human cancer drugs, devices, and imaging techniques.

Perspectives from man’s best friend: National Academy of Medicine’s Workshop on Comparative Oncology

“…To date, the program has completed 12 multicenter clinical trials in pet dogs with spontaneous cancers, conducted through its clinical trial network, the Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (NCI-COTC) (http://ccr. cancer.gov/resources/cop/COTC.asp), which consists of 20 academic veterinary teaching hospitals across the United States and Canada (2). Since the launch of this cooperative group, individual veterinary academic institutions have, under a single institutional lead investigator, initiated several small-scale (one to three sites) comparative oncology clinical trials to address similar questions in cancer drug development.…”

“…It continues to be in the interest of all individuals associated with clinical trials in humans and pet animals to provide the highest levels of medical care to trial participants. Clinical trial design, conduct, and oversight practices are well described and implemented within both COTC studies and those conducted by individual academic and private-sector investigators (1)(2)(3). Institutional mechanisms to ensure compliance with existing federal regulations regarding ethical use of companion animals and the necessary training to ensure ongoing compliance for such clinical studies are in place.…”

Toxicity studies of drugs and chemicals in animals: an overview

“…It is the ratio of acute LD 50 to chronic LD 50 values (Saganuwan, 2012). Dogs have historically been useful, informative models in the development and discovery of many novel cancer strategies (Gordon et al, 2009). The pharmacological manipulation of CB 2 receptor in Sprague-Dawley rats may represent a potential therapeutic tool for the treatment of migraine (Greco et al, 2014), suggesting that animal models of migraine reflect distinct facets of this clinically heterogeneous disorder and contribute to a better understanding of its pathophysiology and pharmacology (Gikermann-Haerter & Moskowitz, 2008).…”

How can grafted breast cancer models be optimized?

“…In fact, pets are exposed to similar carcinogens as humans. 123 However, the use of pet dogs with cancer in the development of human cancer treatments has been sparsely used over the past 30 y 124 as these tumors are difficult to obtain and standardize.…”