Current vaccine-associated sarcoma (VAS) studies in the MacEwen Lab at the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Veterinary Medicine are focusing on the role that growth factors play in the growth and development of VAS cells.  Growth factors are hormones that can be secreted by tumor cells, or cells surrounding and supporting the tumor, that may stimulate the growth, tissue invasion, and movement of tumor cells.  Likewise, certain growth factors may be able to prevent tumor cell death in response to treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

             Our current work is focusing primarily on Platelet-Derived Growth Factor (PDGF).  We have determined that most feline VAS cells express the PDGF receptor (the surface protein that allows PDGF to exert its effect on the cell), and that the use of drugs that cause inhibition of this receptor results in decreased tumor cell growth in vitro.

             Our future plans include determining if PDGF inhibition makes other treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy work more effectively, and to determine if administration of PDGF inhibitors to mice bearing feline VAS tumors inhibits tumor growth.  Although our information regarding the efficacy and potential toxicity of this approach is still too incomplete for us to be able to use this approach in cats with VAS, it is our hope that this may prove a useful strategy for the management of VAS in the near future.

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