Recent advances on canine mammary cancer chemotherapy: A review of studies from 2000 to date

Research performed in the field of mammary cancer chemotherapy significantly improved survival rates in women. Chemotherapy is, therefore, part of breast cancer management along with surgery in humans. In small animals, however, mammary cancer chemotherapy is not routinely performed, except for some cases of distant metastases or tumours not amenable to surgery. Clinical research on adjuvant chemotherapy provided only a few promising results on dogs. On the other hand, many novel agents have been evaluated in canine mammary cancer cell lines, as dog is considered a good model for human breast cancer research. This study reviews recent (the last 15 years) clinical and experimental research on canine mammary cancer chemotherapy (systemic therapy), providing interpretation of the results in correlation to humans along with a brief description of the anticancer agents used.