Cutaneous rhabdoid tumor in a cat

Rhabdoid tumor is a highly aggressive neoplasm of unknown cellular origin in humans, usually occurring in the kidney and central nervous system of infants or children. In older patients, it occurs rarely in other organs, including the skin and soft tissues. A subcutaneous mass in a 13-year-old male mixed-breed cat was composed of nests or sheets of round to polygonal cells with glassy eosinophilic cytoplasmic inclusions. Immunohistochemically, many neoplastic cells expressed vimentin, localized to the cytoplasmic inclusions, whereas the cytoplasm of some neoplastic cells was diffusely positive for neuron-specific enolase, neurofilament, or S-100 protein. By electron microscopy, the cytoplasmic inclusions were found to be composed of aggregates of intermediate filaments. These findings are quite similar to the histologic, immunohistochemical, and ultrastructural features of human rhabdoid tumors and the few rhabdoid tumors reported in animals.