Cutaneous tumor treatment by electrochemotherapy: preliminary clinical results in horse sarcoids

Electrochemotherapy is a new anticancer therapy where the transient permeab ilization of cells by electric field pulses induces a significant increase of antitumoral drug concentration and toxicity in tumor cells. It has been successfully applied to the treatment of tumors in animals and humans by us ing and mitotic drugs. This report describes its first use in the treatment of horse sarcoids. Several horses have been enrolled. They had several tum ors located at different positions. Treatment was performed under short dur ation general anesthesia. Intra tumoral injections of cisplatin were follow ed by short and intense electric pulses directly applied on the skin at the tumor sites. Two to four successive treatments were applied at two-week in tervals. Antitumor effect was obtained. To date, three horses have a two-ye ars period of surveillance. Objective responses were obtained in 100 % of t he treated lesions. All horses tolerated the treatment well. No adverse eff ect from the electric pulses was observed even in the case of a high number of pulses, or when several consecutive treatments were applied.