Top Companion Anim Med
January 2025
Neoplasia is a common disease in companion animals. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of neoplasia often leads to a better disease outcome. Cytology is an inexpensive and minimally invasive method frequently used to diagnose neoplasia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe body condition score (BCS) is a popular method used to assess the body condition of dogs. However, owner-misperception of canine body condition has shown to persist even after being guided by a BCS chart. We compared the BCS assessments performed by the owners of 95 large-sized, purebred dogs without and with the guidance of a 5-point BCS chart.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: To evaluate the proportions of canine mammary gland lesions submitted to a New Zealand diagnostic laboratory, that were neoplastic non-neoplastic and, among neoplasms, malignant benign, and to determine whether age, reproductive status or breed of dog, or size of the mammary mass were associated with the histological diagnosis.
Methods: Canine mammary gland biopsies submitted between the start of 2012 and the end of 2016 were selected from the surgical biopsy database of IDEXX Laboratories, NZ. For each case, details on age, breed, and reproductive status of the patient were registered as reported by the submitting veterinarians, along with the size (classified as small, medium or large) of the lesion and the histological diagnosis reported by the pathologists.
Aberrant expression of immune check point molecules, programmed death ligand (PD-L1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) has been reported in many human cancers with increased protein and gene expression correlated with an aggressive behaviour in some neoplasms. Additionally, PD-L1 blockade has been shown to be an effective therapy for some human cancers. Canine mammary gland tumours have previously been shown to produce PD-L1 protein, but there are no previous studies investigating CTLA-4 in these common canine neoplasms.
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