ABSTRACT
A 5-year-old National Show horse mare presented with a soft mass on the left dorsolateral aspect of the tongue. Over the next 2 years, the mare developed numerous, similar, coalescing masses that extended along the left dorsolateral aspect to the tip of the tongue. Microscopically, the bases for these masses were slender, fusiform, mesenchymal cells that formed compact whorls around myelinated and unmyelinated nerves. These cells were labeled by antibodies directed against vimentin but not by S-100. Ultrastructurally, multiple, concentrically arranged, long, slender cell processes, with discontinuous external laminae and many pinocytotic vesicles, helped to accurately phenotype the proliferative element. Whether this unusual perineurial cell proliferative disorder is neoplastic or not remained a matter of conjecture.
Subject(s)
Horse Diseases/pathology , Nerve Sheath Neoplasms/veterinary , Peripheral Nerves/pathology , Tongue Diseases/veterinary , Animals , Cell Proliferation , Female , Horse Diseases/diagnosis , Horses , Nerve Sheath Neoplasms/pathology , Tongue/pathology , Tongue Diseases/pathologyABSTRACT
The objectives of this study were: 1) to document age-related ovulation failure in mares and 2) to contrast the number of ovarian follicles, occurrence of ovulations, and postovulatory concentrations of progesterone in aged versus young mares. In Experiment 1, 4 of 10 aged (25- to 33-years-old) mares were anovulatory between July 1 and September 1, 1989. In Experiment 2, two of 25 aged (20- to 30-years-old) and none of 21 young (3- to 12-years-old) mares were anovulatory between February 1 and June 30, 1990. The average (+/- SEM) day of the first ovulation was later (P<0.05) for aged versus young mares (May 9 +/- 7.1 vs April 25 +/- 7.4 days, respectively). There tended (P<0.10) to be fewer 11- to 20-mm ovarian follicles in aged versus young mares (2.8 +/- 0.2 vs 5.3 +/- 0.1, respectively), but there was no difference (P>0.10) in the total number of ovarian follicles in aged versus young mares (21.0 +/- 0.3 vs 26.1 +/- 0.2, respectively) during the pooled periovulatory period of the first and second (single) ovulations. The number of ovulatory cycles during the study period was less (P=0.01) for aged versus young mares (2.2 +/- 0.3 vs 3.2 +/- 0.3). Plasma progesterone concentrations on Days 10 and 15 of the first ovulatory cycle were higher (P<0.05) in aged versus young mares.
