Opportunities and Challenges of Genomics-guided Targeted Therapy in Dogs with Cancer

Presentation Description / Summary: In veterinary medicine the standard care of oncology treatment involves histological diagnosis of cancer followed by either single-agent therapy or a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy decided based on tumor type, tumor location, clinical staging and pet parents’ expectation. The standard of care does not often consider each tumor’s genomic characteristics. Oncogene activation and lack of tumor suppressor gene function caused by somatic mutations are leading causes of cancer development and progression. This fact can explain why some dogs respond to the standard care treatment and other dogs remain unresponsive. Recent implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in veterinary practice allows us to incorporate small molecule targeted therapy as part of canine cancer treatment and obtain better outcomes. In this section, the mutation profile of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes identified in dogs with pulmonary carcinoma, splenic hemangiosarcoma, oral melanoma and histiocytic sarcoma submitted to the FidoCure Precision Medicine platform will be reviewed. The effectiveness of molecular therapy using receptor tyrosine kinase, mTOR, HDAC and MEK inhibitors analyzed using real-world data will be presented. Survival time of dogs with specific genetic profiles treated with the corresponding molecular targeted therapies will be evaluated for each tumor type.

Learner Outcomes: The attendees of this lecture will understand the importance of driver mutations for tumor development and progression and also learn different molecular profiles of pulmonary carcinoma, splenic hemangiosarcoma, oral melanoma, histiocytic sarcoma and others. In addition, the audience will have the opportunity to compare the clinical effect of genomics-guided targeted therapy over the standard of care and learn how to handle the main adverse events caused by small molecule treatments.