Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Long-term outcomes after treatment of spinal nephroblastoma in dogs
By Liebel, Francois-Xavier et al.·Published in Veterinary surgery : VS·2011·Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Canine spinal nephroblastoma: long-term outcomes associated with treatment of 10 cases (1996-2009).
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of young, large breed dogs, including several German Shepherds, were diagnosed with spinal nephroblastoma, a type of tumor affecting the spinal cord. These dogs showed signs of chronic weakness and coordination problems in their back legs. Treatment options included surgery and radiation therapy, which helped improve their condition temporarily and extended their lives significantly compared to those who received only palliative care. On average, dogs that underwent surgery or radiation lived about a year longer than those who did not. Unfortunately, most dogs eventually succumbed to the disease despite initial improvements.
People also search for: dog spinal tumor treatment · German Shepherd back leg weakness · canine nephroblastoma prognosis
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To report clinical outcome associated with treatment of canine spinal cord nephroblastoma (CSN). STUDY DESIGN: Case series. ANIMALS: Dogs (n=10) with histopathologically confirmed CSN. METHODS: Records of dogs with CSN were reviewed and clinicopathologic, diagnostic imaging, treatment, outcome, and survival data were collected. RESULTS: CSN resulted in clinical signs of chronic, progressive T3-L3 myelopathy in young, large breed dogs, with an overrepresentation of German Shepherd Dogs (n=4). All CSN were located between T9 and L2. Dogs treated with cytoreductive surgery (n=6) or radiotherapy (1) survived longer (median, 374 days; range, 226-560 days) than dogs treated palliatively (3; median, 55 days; range, 38-176 days). Tumors confined to an intradural-extramedullary (ID-EM) location were associated with superior survival (n=6; median, 380 days; range, 176-560 days) than tumors with intramedullary (IM) involvement (n=4; median, 140 days; range, 38-269 days). Treatment resulted in temporary improvement in neurologic function in 9 dogs, including all dogs treated surgically, but local disease progression resulted in death of 8 dogs. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this observational study suggest that surgical cytoreduction and radiotherapy are effective at improving survival in dogs with CSN, and that ID-EM tumors may be associated with a more favorable prognosis than IM neoplasms.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21223320/