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During grooming, a horse owner may find a small, dry, grayish skin lump that doesn’t seem to cause the horse any discomfort. The lump gets somewhat bigger in the next few weeks, but still doesn’t cause a problem unless tack rubs against it. On a routine health check, the vet confirms that the lump is a sarcoid, one of the most common skin tumors found in horses. The good news is that sarcoids are almost always benign, though they are locally invasive. The bad news is that they are very difficult to treat, and they frequently return after surgical removal, often in a larger and more aggressive form.

Numerous treatments have been used with varying success against sarcoids. Scientists at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech are using a technique known as high-frequency irreversible electroporation, or H-FIRE, to treat equine sarcoids. Electroporation uses a needle inserted into the tumor to deliver repeated brief electric charges of 800 to 850 volts into the tumor tissue. This causes an increase in the electrical conductivity and permeability of the cell plasma membrane and may help to decrease the boundary of the tumor. H-FIRE has proved effective at controlling the tumor’s growth, and may make subsequent removal more successful. The procedure can be carried out in standing horses without the need for general anesthesia.

Seven horses with various types of tumors have been treated with H-FIRE, and the research team plans to expand the trials to include use on melanomas and squamous cell carcinomas. These tumors are more threatening to long-term health and are also difficult to treat successfully. H-FIRE is not available for general use, but when trials have been completed, this technique may offer hope for horses that have not been helped by other treatments.

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