New Study Could Aid In Treatment Of Common Equine Cancer

A new study has aided scientists’ understanding of squamous cell carcinoma, a cancer that commonly affects horses’ eyes, the skin around the eyes and genitalia. Horses affected by this type of cancer have a guarded to poor prognosis and therapies have varies success rates. Euthanasia is required in many cases as the horse becomes uncomfortable.

Researchers from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), King’s College London, the University of Edinburgh and University College London used both histopathology assessment as well as artificial intelligence to show a link between chronic inflammation, equine papillomavirus infection and the progression of equine penile squamous cell carcinoma, which becomes very biologically aggressive.

Drs. Alejandro Suárez-Bonnet, Claire Willis, Rachel Pittaway, Ken Smith, Tim Mair and Simon Priestnall believe that their research, which discovered several other cancer-related signaling molecules, will also prove beneficial for human penile cancer treatment. The researchers believe that their research will improve the prognosis for horses diagnosed with equine squamous cell carcinoma.

The next step will be to identify therapeutic targets and diagnostic markers to aid in the care of horses that have this type of cancer.