Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Combining vincristine and ivermectin to treat canine transmissible
By Ferreira Bulhosa, Laiane et al.·Published in Animal reproduction science·2020·Teaching Hospital of Veterinary Medicine, Brazil·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Vincristine and ivermectin combination chemotherapy in dogs with natural transmissible venereal tumor of different cyto-morphological patterns: A prospective outcome evaluation.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs with transmissible venereal tumors (CTVT) were treated with either vincristine alone or a combination of vincristine and ivermectin to see which worked better. Both treatments were effective in reducing the tumors, and dogs receiving the combination therapy tolerated it well without developing resistance. Interestingly, the dogs treated with vincristine alone experienced a drop in white blood cell counts, which didn’t happen with the combination treatment. Overall, both options helped the dogs, but the combination therapy showed a better safety profile.
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Abstract
Vincristine is the first-line drug for the chemotherapy of canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT). Drug resistance is related to tumor cyto-morphological patterns of CTVT. There are anti-cancer properties of ivermectin, thus, a combination of ivermectin and vincristine could be an effective chemo-therapeutic treatment regimen for CTVT. Study aims, therefore, were to (1) assess the frequency of CTVT cyto-morphologies, and (2) evaluate treatment efficacy and possible adverse reactions to vincristine compared with a combination vincristine and ivermectin. Dogs (n = 41) with CTVT were characterized by tumor cyto-morphology and disease severity and of those, 20 were randomly allocated into two groups. There was a control group (G-Vin; n = 10) in which there was treatment with vincristine; and an experimental group (G-Iv/Vin; n = 10) in which there was treatment with the ivermectin/vincristine combination. Although dogs in the G-Iv/Vin group had more severe disease at the beginning of the study (P = 0.0031), the number of weeks and chemotherapy sessions until tumor remission were similar among dogs of the two groups, indicating both treatments were effective. There was a decrease in the leukocyte counts (P = 0.0020), related to neutropenia (P = 0.0371) in the G-Vin but not the G-Iv/Vin treatment group. There was no tumor resistance that developed during the study regardless of the treatment regimen used or tumor cytomorphology. In summary, the use of the vincristine/ivermectin combination was well tolerated and efficacious for CTVT treatment.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32414469/