KSU VETERINARY ONCOLOGIST SEARCHES FOR
CANCER CURE
Dr. Ruthanne
Chun, veterinary oncologist and assistant professor of clinical sciences at
"If animals are
developing cancers from something from the environment we can learn how to more
effectively use animals as sentinels, and what it might be in the environment
that's causing the cancer," Chun said. "Animals also get many similar
tumor types as people, and for some tumor types, animals get them more frequently and the
natural course of the tumor is much faster than it is
in people.
"For instance, if
a dog develops a bone tumor, it's very similar to the
development of bone tumors in humans," she said.
"But humans, maybe 2,000 new cases are diagnosed per year, whereas in dogs
maybe 10,000 new cases are diagnosed per year, so we can get a lot of
information about that particular tumor and how it
responds to therapy in dogs, and then move that therapy information over into
humans."
Chun's current research
focuses on clinical trials and looking at new chemotherapy drugs, or drugs that
have been used in people for a long time, but researchers don't know what the
effects are on dogs and cats.
"My main goal is
recruiting cases, making sure that regional veterinarians know that I'm here
and that I would love to help them out with their cancer cases," Chun
said. "I would also like to do some basic research and my main area of
interest is with new blood vessel ingrowth into tumors.
"For a tumor to grow it needs to have nutrients, and for nutrients
to get there, the tumor has to induce new blood
vessels to grow," she said. "It's a huge area of research in human
medicine and a lot of other veterinarian oncologists are looking at many
different aspects of it."
The tumors
Chun is interested in treating are bone tumors in
dogs, vaccine-associated sarcomas in cats and mast cell tumors,
which are a common skin tumor in dogs.
"I guess with my cancer
research in particular, what is really exciting about it is that if we can stop
the ingrowth of new blood vessels, we might not have
to use chemotherapy," Chun said. "So it's possible that the drugs
that we might use to stop blood vessels from growing would be much less toxic than chemotherapy and maybe much more helpful than
chemotherapy.
"And if we can use
that effectively in dogs and cats, it's possible that they can use that
effectively in humans, so that's my longest term goal," she said. "I
think realistically, I'm not sure that we're ever going to ever really be able
to stop cancer, or at least not in my generation, but the more we understand
it, the more we can control it."
For more information,
contact Chun at 785-532-5690.
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