Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Maltese dog with neck stiffness and spinal tumor diagnosis
By Michimae, Yoshiko et al.·Published in The Journal of veterinary medical science·2004·Department of Veterinary and Pathology, Japan·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Anaplastic ependymoma in the cervical spinal cord of a maltese dog.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
An 8-year-old female Maltese was brought in because she was showing a stooped posture and stiffness in her neck and back. A neurologic exam revealed she had lost some sense of body position and did not respond to pain as expected. Unfortunately, a postmortem examination showed that she had anaplastic ependymoma, a type of tumor in her cervical spinal cord, which was causing her symptoms. Sadly, due to the severity of the tumor, treatment options were limited, and the dog did not survive.
People also search for: Maltese dog neck stiffness · dog spinal cord tumor symptoms · ependymoma in dogs treatment
Abstract
An 8-year and 6-month-old female Maltese dog showed a stoop with rigidity of her cervix and back. Neurologic examination showed loss of proprioception, and deficiency of pain response. Postmortem examination revealed the neoplastic mass replacing the central area in the cervical spinal cord at the level from 4th to 5th segments. Histologically, the mass was composed of neoplastic ependymal cells. The neoplastic cells showed marked atypism, and occasionally formed ependymal rosettes. Based on the morphologic features, the tumor was diagnosed as anaplastic ependymoma. Immunohistochemistry showed that the neoplastic cells were negative for glial fibrillary acid protein, and slightly positive for vimentin and cytokeratin.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15472485/