vetInspECT: a platform for the multicentric evaluation of treatment response after electrochemotherapy in veterinary oncology - feline tumors

Electrochemotherapy (ECT) is a local ablative treatment and in veterinary oncology, evidence supporting ECT efficacy is mainly derived from case reports and small case series, underscoring the need for standardized, multicentric data collection comparable to human oncology registries. The primary aim of this study was to establish VetInspECT, a veterinary clinical registry adapted from the human InspECT platform, to enable standardized reporting and multicentre data collection for ECT. The secondary aim was to evaluate antitumor effectiveness using data from the single centre that initiated the registry. VetInspECT was designed to systematically record patient characteristics, tumor features, treatment parameters, and follow-up outcomes in animals treated with ECT. Retrospective data spanning from 2012 to 2024 from feline patients treated at a Slovenian center were entered into the database. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) was the most frequently treated tumor (66%), followed by mast cell tumors (MCT; 12%) and other carcinomas and sarcomas. Complete response rates were highest in MCT (95%), followed by non-SCC carcinomas (90%), SCC (74%), and sarcomas (33%). Tumor size, clinical stage, anatomical location, and mucosal involvement significantly affected treatment response and progression-free survival. In conclusion, VetInspECT represents an important step toward standardized ECT reporting in veterinary oncology and supports the use of shared registries to enable robust multicentric analyses and broader clinical integration of ECT.