Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
How accurate are dog skin tumor biopsies before treatment
By Shaw, T et al.·Published in Veterinary and comparative oncology·2018·Surgery Department, Australia·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Diagnostic accuracy of pre-treatment biopsy for grading cutaneous mast cell tumours in dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A dog with a skin lump was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor (MCT), which is a common type of skin tumor in dogs. To determine the tumor's grade and plan for treatment, the veterinarian performed a pre-treatment biopsy. The study found that different biopsy methods, like wedge, punch, and needle core, were highly accurate in grading the tumor, with accuracy rates ranging from 92% to 100%. This means that the pre-treatment biopsies can effectively help identify whether the tumor is low-grade or high-grade, which is important for treatment decisions.
People also search for: dog skin lump mast cell tumor · biopsy accuracy for dog tumors · mast cell tumor treatment in dogs
Abstract
Mast cell tumours (MCTs) are common tumours of the canine skin, and are estimated to represent up to 20% of all skin tumours in dogs. Tumour grade has a major impact on the incidence of local recurrence and metastatic potential. In addition to helping the clinician with surgical planning, knowledge of the tumour grade also assists in proper prognostication and client education. For pre-treatment biopsies to be useful, there must exist a high level of correlation between the histopathological grade obtained from the pre-treatment biopsy and the actual histopathological grade from the excisional biopsy. The aim of this study was to determine concordance of tumour grade between various biopsy techniques (wedge, punch, needle core) and the "gold standard" excisional biopsy method. We found an overall concordance rate of 96% based on the Patnaik grading system, and an overall concordance rate of 92% based on the Kiupel grading system. The accuracy of the various biopsy techniques (wedge, punch and needle core) when compared with excisional biopsy was 92%, 100% and 100%, respectively, based on the Patnaik grading system, and 90%, 95% and 100%, respectively, based on the Kiupel grading system. Of the cases with discordant results, the pre-treatment biopsies tended to underestimate the grade of the tumour. Based on these results, we conclude that pre-treatment biopsies are sufficiently accurate for differentiating low-grade from high-grade MCTs, regardless of biopsy technique or tumour location.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28857446/