Cancer therapy using nanoparticle drug delivery in dogs with osteosarcoma.

An engineer teamed up with a veterinarian to test a bone cancer drug delivery system in the dogs because they are closer in size and biology to humans . Dogs also have naturally occurring bone cancers, which also are a lot like human bone tumors. The researchers report their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the clinical trials, the dogs tolerated the highest planned doses of cancer-drug-laden nanoparticles with no signs of toxicity. As in mice, the particles homed in on tumor sites, thanks to a coating of the drug pamidronate, which preferentially binds to degraded sites in bone. The nanoparticles also showed anti-cancer activity in mice and dogs. These findings are a proof-of-concept that nanoparticles can be used to target bone cancers in large mammals, the researchers said. The approach may one day be used to treat metastatic skeletal cancers. The aim of the research was to evaluate these drug-delivery strategies, not only in a mouse model, but also at a scale that would mimic what a person would get. The amount of nanoparticle that was administered to these dogs was a thousand-fold greater in quantity than would typically be given to a mouse and result was satisfactory.