Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Acute undifferentiated leukemia causing depression in an 8-year-old
By Miglio, A et al.·Published in Australian veterinary journal·2014·Department of Veterinary Medicine, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Acute undifferentiated leukaemia in a dog.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
An 8-year-old German Shepherd was brought to the vet because he was acting depressed, weak, and had low red blood cell and platelet counts. Tests showed that he had severe enlargement of his liver, spleen, and kidneys, along with a high number of abnormal cells in his blood and bone marrow. Unfortunately, these immature cells were not responding to any treatments, and the condition was diagnosed as acute undifferentiated leukemia, which is very rare in dogs. Sadly, the dog did not survive, as this type of leukemia is aggressive and typically does not respond to therapy.
People also search for: dog leukemia symptoms · German Shepherd weak and depressed · dog blood test results explained
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Acute undifferentiated leukaemia (AUL) is considered a separate entity in the context of acute leukaemias. AUL is extremely rare in both humans and dogs, has a rapid clinical course and does not respond to treatment. It is characterised by the presence of blast cells within the bone marrow and/or peripheral blood at levels ≥ 20% and even up to 100% of all nucleated cells. Blast cells are unable to be differentiated on morphological, cytochemical and phenotypic criteria into myeloid or lymphoid lineages because of their immaturity and/or atypia. CASE REPORT: An 8-year-old German Shepherd dog was referred for depression, asthenia, mild anaemia, thrombocytopenia and marked leucocytosis. Abdominal ultrasound showed hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, bilateral nephromegaly and enlargement of mesenteric lymph nodes. Echocardiography revealed biventricular hypertrophy with abnormal tissue density of the myocardium. Blood and bone marrow smears were composed of 95% unclassifiable and/or atypical blast cells and signs of dysplasia of the erythroid and thrombocytic/megakaryocytic lineages were present. Blast cells were negative for all cytochemical stains used and flow cytometry of peripheral blood revealed 85% of total leucocytes consisting of small-to-medium-sized cells, negative for all lymphoid and myeloid markers except CD45 and CD34. After necropsy, cytology and histology revealed that blast cells had diffusely infiltrated all tissues examined. Both erythroid and megakaryocytic extramedullary haemopoiesis was also detected in the spleen, lymph nodes and liver. All immunohistochemical stains used were negative. CONCLUSION: On the basis of all the results, a diagnosis of acute leukaemia involving a very primitive haematopoietic precursor was made.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25424765/