Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Microbiology

Bibliography: p. 65-73.

Many studies have demonstrated the importance of Breast Cancer Stem Cells (BCSCs) with the phenotypes CD44+/CD24- and/or CD133+ in the initiation of invasive and metastatic mammary tumors. In felines, most of the queens with mammary carcinoma (MC) exhibited an aggressive metastatic tendency, that's why the developing of rapid, accurate and noninvasive technique for prediction and monitoring of metastasis in cats is important. Unlike conventional therapies, gold nanorods (AuNRs)-mediated plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT) selectively eliminates BCSCs. It is the first time in the current cohort study to: (1) detect and enumerate circulatory BCSCs in the feline peripheral blood against their specific cellular markers using flow cytometer analysis (FCA), (2) set up a cutoff value of diagnostic significance (>276 for CD44+/CD24- populations and >12 for CD133+ cells), and (3) investigate the anti-tumor activity of AuNRs PPTT on the circulatory BCSCs by FCA in cats with spontaneous metastatic and non-metastatic forms of MC. Our findings revealed statistically significant differences (p= 0.0001) between healthy and diseased animal groups, as well as a statistically significant (p= 0.046) increase in the CD44+/CD24- and CD133+ cell counts in cats with metastasis between baseline and last sample values. This supported the use of FCA as a sensitive, specific, and rapid diagnostic and monitoring tool for mammary carcinoma. As the PPTT was applied on each animal in this investigation either alone (Group AI &II) or in combination with mastectomy (Group B), the treated exhibited a gradual decrease in thetumor sizes till complete ablation 6-8 weeks post treatment. The total survival rate was 53.8%, the metastatic animals (Group AI) had a lower Overall Survival (OA) (17. months) and Progression Free Survival (PFS) (4.08 months) than the non-metastatic cats (22.5&19.3 months) respectively

Issued also as CD

Text in English and abstract in Arabic & English.