Undifferentiated Carcinoma of Unknown Origin in
the Lumbar Spine of a Dog
Jiyoung Park, Seong Mok
Jeong, Ho-Jung Choi, Kun-Ho Song and Kyoung-Won Seo*
College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungnam National
University, Deajeon, 305-764, Korea *Corresponding author:
kwseo@cnu.ac.kr
Abstract
An 11-year-old
Yorkshire Terrier dog presented with progressive ataxia and paraparesis of 1 month duration. The abnormality
was localized to the T13-L2 segment by neurologic examination and CT. MRI showed
a space-occupying lesion compressing the spinal cord and adjacent osteolysis of
the L1 vertebra. A diagnosis of poorly differentiated carcinoma with high
malignancy was reached by histopathology of the biopsy samples. Metronomic
chemotherapy was applied, but the patient was euthanized at 133 days after first
presentation. Samples of the lumbar mass, pulmonary nodules, and lymph nodes
were obtained during necropsy and evaluated with histopathology and
immunohistochemistry (IHC). Undifferentiated carcinoma suspicious of
transitional cell carcinoma was confirmed, but the exact origin of the tumor was
undetermined. This is the first case report of an extradural primary carcinoma
of unknown primary in the canine spinal cord and paravertebral region.