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Canine spinal nephroblastoma: long-term outcomes associated with treatment of 10 cases (1996-2009)
Francois-Xavier Liebel1, John H Rossmeisl, Otto I Lanz
1Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Objective:
To report clinical outcome associated with treatment of canine spinal cord nephroblastoma (CSN).
Study Design:
Case series.
Animals:
Dogs (n=10) with histopathologically confirmed CSN.
Methods:
Records of dogs with CSN were reviewed and clinicopathologic, diagnostic imaging, treatment, outcome, and survival data were collected.
Results:
CSN resulted in clinical signs of chronic, progressive T3-L3 myelopathy in young, large breed dogs, with an overrepresentation of German Shepherd Dogs (n=4). All CSN were located between T9 and L2. Dogs treated with cytoreductive surgery (n=6) or radiotherapy (1) survived longer (median, 374 days; range, 226-560 days) than dogs treated palliatively (3; median, 55 days; range, 38-176 days). Tumors confined to an intradural-extramedullary (ID-EM) location were associated with superior survival (n=6; median, 380 days; range, 176-560 days) than tumors with intramedullary (IM) involvement (n=4; median, 140 days; range, 38-269 days). Treatment resulted in temporary improvement in neurologic function in 9 dogs, including all dogs treated surgically, but local disease progression resulted in death of 8 dogs.
Conclusions:
Results of this observational study suggest that surgical cytoreduction and radiotherapy are effective at improving survival in dogs with CSN, and that ID-EM tumors may be associated with a more favorable prognosis than IM neoplasms.
