Electrochemotherapy (ECT) couples the administration of anticancer drugs with the delivery of electric pulses that increase the drug uptake through the cell membranes, thus resulting in an improved efficacy. This study has evaluated the tolerability and efficacy of the combination of systemic bleomycin and local cisplatin as ECT agents for incompletely excised canine soft tissue sarcoma (STS). Thirty dogs with incompletely excised STSs were enrolled. The dogs received intravenous 20 mg/m2 bleomycin and the tumor bed and margins were infiltrated with cisplatin at the dose of 0.5 mg/cm2. Then, trains of permeabilizing biphasic electric pulses were applied under sedation. More precisely, five minutes after the injection of the chemotherapy agents, sequences of 8 biphasic pulses lasting 50+50 microseconds each, were delivered in bursts of 1300 V/cm using caliper electrodes. A second session was performed two weeks later. The treatment was well tolerated and side effects were minimal. Twenty-six dogs had no evidence of recurrence at the time of manuscript writing, four had recurrence and one of the four recurring dogs, died of lung metastases. Median estimated disease free was 857 days. Perivascular wall tumors response was compared to that of the other STSs, but the difference in outcome was not significative. ECT using combination of bleomycin and cisplatin appears to be effective in the treatment of incompletely resected STSs in dogs. This therapeutic approach could be a useful addition to the current options in consideration of its low cost, limited toxicity, and ease of administration.
Key words: bleomycin, cisplatin, dog, electrochemotherapy, sarcoma
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