Clinicopathological findings, treatment, and outcome in 60 cats with gastrointestinal eosinophilic sclerosing fibroplasia.

BACKGROUND: Gastrointestinal eosinophilic sclerosing fibroplasia (GESF) in cats presents as mass(es) associated with the gastrointestinal tract, mesentery, and abdominal lymph nodes. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: To report the clinicopathological findings, treatment, and outcome of cats with GESF. ANIMALS: Sixty client-owned cats diagnosed with GESF. METHODS: Retrospective review of medical records of cats with histopathologically confirmed GESF. RESULTS: The median age was 5.4 years (interquartile range [IQR], 3.3-8.9.); 30% were Domestic Shorthairs and 12% were Domestic Longhair cats, with the most prevalent pedigree breeds being Ragdolls (25%), Exotic Shorthair (10%) and Persian (8%) cats. The median duration of clinical signs was 90 days (IQR, 17.5-247.0); the most common clinical signs were weight loss (60%), hyporexia/anorexia (55%), chronic vomiting (37%), lethargy (35%) and chronic diarrhea (27%). Masses were located in the small intestine (32%), stomach (27%), ileocolic junction (15%), colon (10%), lymph node (8%) and mesentery (8%) and 15% of cats had >1 mass. Eosinophilia was present in 50% and hypoalbuminemia in 28% of cats. The mass was removed surgically in 37% of cases. Most cats (98%) were treated with corticosteroids. Survival was not statistically different between cats treated with surgical resection and cats treated with medical therapy alone, 88% of the cats were still alive at the time of writing. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: GESF is an important differential diagnosis for abdominal masses in cats, and has a much better prognosis than previously reported.

TRPV4 activation enhances compressive properties and glycosaminoglycan deposition of equine neocartilage sheets.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) cation channel modulation on mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-derived neocartilage. Methods: RT-PCR was performed to evaluate mRNA levels of chondrogenic, hypertrophic and candidate mechanoresponsive genes in equine neocartilage sheets exposed to pulses of the TRPV4 agonist (GSK101) at different concentrations (N â€‹= â€‹10). Biochemical assays and mechanical tests (double indentation and unconfined compression) evaluated neocartilage properties (N â€‹= â€‹5). Results: GSK101 treatment (1 â€‹nM) increased ACAN levels after treatment for 1-h per day for 3 days. No increase was detected for hypertrophic markers RUNX2, MMP13, MMP1, ALP or COL10A1 at this concentration. This treatment regimen also increased sGAG content and enhanced compressive properties compared to untreated controls. GSK101 showed no effect on candidate mechanoresponsive genes at the time-point of analysis. Conclusions: Chemical activation of TRPV4 signalling can be used as a strategy to enhance matrix synthesis and maturation of MSC-derived engineered neocartilage and augment its load-bearing capacity.

Canine anal sac gland carcinoma with regional lymph node metastases treated with sacculectomy and lymphadenectomy: Outcome and possible prognostic factors.

The staging system commonly used in canine anal sac gland carcinoma (ASGC) is a revised Tumour-Node-Metastasis (TNM) system published in 2007. This staging system consists in four stages and, for dogs with nodal metastases, the size of the metastatic lymph node (mLN) defines the N stage. However, we hypothesise that (1) the mLN size has no prognostic significance when the mLN can be excised, (2) a high number of mLNs is associated with poorer prognosis and (3) the measurement of the mLN on imaging is not reproducible. To investigate these hypotheses, medical records and diagnostic images of dogs with ASGC and mLN, treated with sacculectomy and lymphadenectomy, with or without chemotherapy, were reviewed. Interobserver variability for mLN measurement was assessed. Prognostic factors including mLN size and number were investigated. Time to documented progression (TDP) and disease-specific survival (DSS) were evaluated. Progression-free interval (PFI) was analysed with interval-censored data analysis. Fifty-seven dogs were included. The median PFI, TDP and DSS were 110 (95%CI 61.5-185.5), 196 (95%CI 162-283) and 340 days (95%CI 321-471), respectively. For measurement of the largest mLN, interobserver agreement was excellent but limits of agreement reached 39.7%. Neither the size of the largest mLN nor the use of adjuvant chemotherapy were associated with outcome. The number of mLNs was associated with outcome and having more than four mLNs was associated with shorter PFI (p < .001), TDP (p = .004) and DSS (p < .001). While mLN size measurement was not consistently reproducible and did not influence outcome in our cohort, number of mLNs did. Further studies are required for development of a revised staging system.