Toxicology Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Toxicology, including details on forensic toxicology, carcinogenicity, assays.

Spontaneous deciduosarcoma in a domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

Cooper TK, Adelsohn D, Gilbertson SR

Department of Comparative Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Broadway Research Building, Suite 863, 733N Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205-2196, USA. tcooper6@jhmi.edu

Deciduosarcoma is a rare, hormonally dependent neoplasm with features of malignancy, previously reported only in rabbits enrolled in chronic toxicology studies involving estrogens with or without progestins. An exploratory laparotomy was performed on a 6-year-old pet Dutch dwarf rabbit following palpation of a 6-cm-diameter abdominal mass. Grossly, the mass was fleshy and nodular, adhered to but not appearing to originate from the small intestine, with a smaller mass of similar appearance involving the uterus, and an effaced mesenteric lymph node. Histologically, the mass was characterized by spindloid cells and large epithelioid cells with abundant pale eosinophilic vacuolated cytoplasm and an infiltrative pattern of growth. Giant cells with large, bizarre, hyperchromatic nuclei were common. Cells were positive by immunohistochemistry for vimentin and progesterone and estrogen receptors and negative for pancytokeratin (AE1/AE3), cytokeratin 18, desmin, alpha-smooth muscle actin (SMA), and CD10. Based on histologic and immunohistochemical findings, a diagnosis of deciduosarcoma was made.

Published 4 May 2006 in Vet Pathol, 43(3): 377-80.
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