The National Cancer Institute’s Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium (NCI-COTC)

The COTC infrastructure provides a facile means of conducting multi-center clinical trials in pet dogs to advance anti-cancer drug development and cancer biology questions that are not sufficiently asked or answered in other animal models.^23,24 Eighteen COTC member institutions participated in this randomized 2-arm parallel superiority trial following CONSORT guidelines. The study period included the entirety of the dogs’ disease-free interval (DFI) after diagnosis, amputation of the affected limb, and administration of adjuvant carboplatin therapy with or without adjuvant sirolimus administration. Dogs were considered off-study at the time metastatic disease progression was detected and confirmed through standard clinical radiographic imaging methods and/or tissue analysis.