Treatment of two cats with advanced nasal lymphoma with orthovoltage radiation therapy and systemic chemotherapy

ABSTRACT

Background: Feline nasal lymphoma is generally a localized and radiosensitive tumor. Treatment options include radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of both treatments. Chemotherapy alone is generally not effective, leading to median survival times of 98 to 358 days, while RT alone or a combination of RT and chemotherapy lead to median survivals of 19 months and 955 days, respectively. Orthovoltage radiation therapy, the only radiation available in Brasil, has the disadvantage of being superficial, treating only tumors of 2 cm or less and causing marked skin side effects. The objective of this paper is to report two cases of advanced feline nasal lymphoma, with cribriform plate destruction and central nervous system invasion, successfully treated with orthovoltage radiation therapy and systemic chemotherapy. Case Two female mixed breed cats were presented with nasal discharge, sneezing and facial deformity. The second cat also had neurologic signalment. Definitive diagnosis in histopathology was lymphoma. Computed tomography revealed advanced disease in both cases, with intranasal mass, bone lysis, invasion of orbital space and central nervous system. Both cats were treated with radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy. The first case received radiation therapy for gross disease (12 daily fractions of 300 cGy, five times per week) and CCNU/prednisolone [...]