Metabolic Profiling of Multicentric Canine Lymphoma by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Results:

New Data May Lead to Improved Drug Therapies for Canine Lymphoma

Lymphoma is one of the most common cancers in dogs. Chemotherapy usually produces a good initial response, but relapse is common and survival is usually less than two years after diagnosis. A new technology, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, has been used successfully in humans to identify tumor biomarkers (substances produced by cancer cells). With Morris Animal Foundation funding, researchers at Colorado State University applied this new technology to canine lymphoma patients. They measured whether metabolites (or their changing values after the first dose of chemotherapy) could predict a dog’s initial response to therapy, remission times or long-term survival. They discovered that the lymph nodes of canine lymphoma patients have the same metabolites found in human cancers. In people, these biomarkers are known to have prognostic and therapeutic significance. This project provided new information that increases our understanding of the fundamentals of canine cancer metabolism. This information is not only needed to find new therapeutic targets during drug development but it could also help in the immediate evaluation of a patient’s treatment response and allow modification of therapy according to early response. Furthermore, the investigators will use this information to evaluate the usefulness of advanced imaging techniques for determining early treatment response noninvasively.

D07CA-040
Dr. Susan L. Kraft, Colorado State University