Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Feline large granular lymphocyte lymphoma mostly affects the gut
By Finotello, R et al.·Published in Veterinary and comparative oncology·2018·Small Animal Teaching Hospital, United Kingdom·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Feline large granular lymphocyte lymphoma: An Italian Society of Veterinary Oncology (SIONCOV) retrospective study.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
A group of 109 cats diagnosed with a rare type of lymphoma called large granular lymphocyte (LGL) lymphoma showed serious symptoms and a poor response to treatment. Most of these cats had issues in their gastrointestinal tract, and common symptoms included anemia and elevated liver enzymes. Treatments varied, with some cats receiving chemotherapy, surgery, or corticosteroids, but many did not respond well. Unfortunately, the average survival time was only 21 days, although a small number of cats did survive longer than six months. This highlights the challenging nature of LGL lymphoma in cats.
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Abstract
Feline large granular lymphocyte (LGL) lymphoma is an uncommon subtype of lymphoma characterized by a grave prognosis and scarce response to chemotherapy. There are limited reports on clinico-pathological and prognostic factors. One-hundred and 9 cats with newly diagnosed LGL lymphoma that underwent initial staging (including hematology, serum biochemistry, thoracic radiographs and abdominal ultrasound), and followed-up were retrospectively evaluated. LGL lymphoma was localized within the gastrointestinal tract with or without extra-intestinal involvement in 91.7% of the cases, and at extra-gastrointestinal sites in 8.3%. Symptoms were frequent. Anemia (31.2%) and neutrophilia (26.6%) were commonly observed, and 14 (12.8%) cats had neoplastic circulating cells. Frequent biochemistry abnormalities included elevated ALT (39.4%) and hypoalbuminemia (28.4%). Twenty (54.1%) of 37 cats had elevated serum LDH. Treatment varied among cats, and included surgery (11%), chemotherapy (23%), corticosteroids (38.5%) and no treatment (27.5%). Median time to progression (MTTP) was 5 days, and median survival time (MST) 21 days. MST was significantly shorter in the case of substage b, circulating neoplastic cells, lack of chemotherapy administration, and lack of treatment response. A small subset of cats (7.3%) survived more than 6 months, suggesting that a more favorable clinical course can be found among LGL lymphoma patients.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28556532/