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Peer-reviewed veterinary case report

Malignant potential of aortic body tumors in dogs studied

By Yamamoto, S et al.·Published in Journal of comparative pathology·2013·Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan·View original on PubMed

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Original publication title: Histopathological and immunohistochemical evaluation of malignant potential in canine aortic body tumours.

Species:
dog

Plain-English summary

A dog with an aortic body tumor was studied to understand its potential for being cancerous. Researchers looked at 13 cases and found that tumors with metastases (spread to other organs) were generally larger than those without. All tumors showed signs of being malignant, regardless of size or whether they had spread. The study concluded that these tumors are likely to be malignant, and the tests used didn't help in determining how aggressive the tumors were. Unfortunately, the findings suggest that dogs with these tumors may face serious health risks.

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Abstract

In order to verify the malignant potential of aortic body tumours (ABTs) in dogs, 13 cases of canine ABT were studied histopathologically and immunohistochemically. The cases were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of metastases to other organs at necropsy examination (metastasis group [n = 9] and non-metastasis group [n = 4]). The mean tumour weight:body weight ratio (TW:BW; g/kg) in the metastasis group (9.3 &#xb1; 6.7) was significantly higher than that in the non-metastasis group (1.5 &#xb1; 1.7) (P <0.05). In both groups, the neoplastic cells had malignant features including pleomorphism, anisocytosis and anisokaryosis, and mononuclear giant cells were present, showing invasion through the capsule and into the vascular lumen and other adjacent tissues. The mitotic index (MI), mean nuclear area (NA) for size value and coefficient of variation of the nuclear area (CVNA) for anisonucleosis did not differ significantly between the two groups. These findings show that anaplastic characteristics are present regardless of the tumour size or the presence or absence of metastases, suggesting that these tumours are generally malignant or potentially malignant. Immunohistochemical analysis using neuroendocrine markers including neuron-specific enolase, chromogranin A and S100 revealed no obvious differences in labelling intensity of neoplastic cells related to the presence or absence of metastases or associated with the mean TW:BW, MI, NA or CVNA value, indicating that immunohistochemistry has no practical value for determining the tumour grade of canine ABTs.

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Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23465289/