Multimodal non-surgical treatment of a feline tracheal adenocarcinoma

A 10-year-old, castrated male domestic shorthair cat presented with a 2-3 month history of weight loss, lethargy and coughing. Thoracic radiographs revealed a soft tissue opacity overlying the dorsal trachea from the first rib to second rib and the ventral aspect of the trachea extending from the second rib to approximately the fourth rib. CT confirmed a mass involving the dorsal, right lateral and ventral aspects of the trachea narrowing the lumen and extending from vertebra C7 through T4. Bronchoscopy revealed a partially circumferential irregular and multilobulated tracheal mass, which was biopsied. The histopathological diagnosis was tracheal adenocarcinoma. The cat was treated with a definitive course of external beam radiation therapy (RT; 3 Gy × 18), cytotoxic chemotherapy, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor and palliative RT. The cat remained asymptomatic for 2 months and the mass remained stable radiographically for 11 months after RT.

With multimodal treatment the cat had a survival time of 755 days. Initial treatment included definitive RT, carboplatin and piroxicam, followed by toceranib phosphate and palliative RT when the mass recurred. This case report describes the first documented use of non-surgical treatment and long-term outcome of tracheal adenocarcinoma in a cat. This case report is an indication that prolonged survival can be achieved with multimodal therapy.