Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
High EGFR levels linked to worse prognosis in canine bone cancer
By Selvarajah, Gayathri T et al.·Published in Veterinary journal (London, England : 1997)·2012·Department of Clinical Sciences of Companion Animals, Netherlands·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Expression of epidermal growth factor receptor in canine osteosarcoma: association with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at dogs with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, and found that higher levels of a protein called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) were linked to more aggressive tumors and shorter survival times. While EGFR levels alone didn't predict how well a dog would do, some dogs with high EGFR might benefit from treatments that target this protein. This suggests that veterinarians could consider anti-EGFR therapies for certain cases of osteosarcoma to potentially improve outcomes.
People also search for: dog osteosarcoma treatment · canine cancer survival rates · anti-EGFR therapy for dogs
Abstract
Expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is associated with aggressive growth and metastasis of a range of tumours, including osteosarcomas (OS), although some studies have reported no relevance to clinicopathological events or prognosis. The present study evaluated EGFR mRNA and protein expression in a panel of OS cell lines, normal bones, frozen primary OS and tissue microarrays. EGFR expression was significantly elevated in primary OS compared to normal bones and in metastases of OS to the lungs in comparison with extrapulmonary sites. However, there were no clinical or pathological associations with mRNA expression levels in frozen tumours. Tissue microarray analysis demonstrated that a subset of canine OS with high EGFR expression was associated with significantly shorter survival times and disease-free intervals. Cytoplasmic expression of EGFR was present in 75% of metastases and was similar to expression in primary tumours. EGFR expression alone is not a reliable predictor of outcome and other markers are necessary for further prognostic stratification of dogs with OS. However, these findings suggest that a subset of dogs may benefit from anti-EGFR adjuvant therapies.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22436430/