Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Recurrence and spread of dog skin tumors after surgery with OCT
By Johnson, Carley P et al.·Published in The Canadian veterinary journal = La revue veterinaire canadienne·2025·Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, United States·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Recurrence and metastasis of cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors following excision with advanced surgical margin assessment.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at 71 dogs with skin tumors that had been surgically removed to see how well the surgery worked. Many of these tumors were cancerous, and some dogs had issues with the tumors coming back or spreading to other parts of the body. It was found that dogs with incomplete surgical margins (meaning some cancer cells might have been left behind) were more likely to have their tumors return or spread. This suggests that checking the edges of the tumor more thoroughly could help improve outcomes, but not all dogs with incomplete margins had problems.
People also search for: dog skin tumor recurrence · mast cell tumor treatment in dogs · soft tissue sarcoma in dogs
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Surgical margin status can affect the risk for recurrence in dogs with cutaneous and subcutaneous masses. Histopathology is the current gold standard for margin assessment, despite evaluating small amounts of the surgical margin. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been described for surgical margin assessment following the excision of canine cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors. OBJECTIVE: To assess the rates of recurrence and metastasis following excision with an incomplete margin on OCT and confirmed with histopathology. ANIMALS AND PROCEDURE: Seventy-one excised canine cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors underwent OCT imaging and histopathologic assessment. RESULTS: Of 61 tumors, 51 were malignant, including 21 soft tissue sarcomas and 21 mast cell tumors. Ten dogs experienced local tumor recurrence, with 7/10 and 8/10 having incomplete margins on OCT and histopathology, respectively. Ten dogs experienced distant metastasis, with 6/10 and 8/10 having incomplete margins on OCT and histopathology, respectively. CONCLUSION AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Local recurrence occurred in tumors with predominately incomplete margins following advanced surgical margin assessment; however, not all tumors with incomplete margins developed local recurrence. Further prospective research is needed to assess the effect of entire surgical margin imaging on patient outcomes.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40786730/