Epidemiological Data in Canidae Osteosarcoma

Abstract

The osteosarcoma is a malignant bony tumour which localizes in most cases at the level of medullar cavity of the bony metaphysis, gradually invading the adjacent tissues. The osteosarcom generally alter large breed individuals over 7 years old on the average. The present paper tries to present the epidemiological aspects concerning the prevalence of osteosarcoma in dogs. The study was carried out in 2008-2010 in the clinics of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Bucharest on 87 dogs, which were diagnosed with osteosarcoma. The animals were clinically, radiologically and histologically investigated. After all these investigations, we found out the prevalence of the skeleton osteosarcoma in 98.85% cases in comparison with the extraskeletal osteosarcoma 1.15%. The animals which were diagnosed with osteosarcom represented 56.32% males, and 43.68% female. Considering the age of the animals we can mention: 3.45% between 1 and 5 years, 73.56% 5-10 years, and 32.98% over 10 years. 83.72% of the cases of skeletal osteosarcom had appendicular localization and 16.28% axial localization. Regarding the appendicular localization we mention the following: 43.06% at the metaphysis level, 41.67% at the epiphysis level, and 15.28% at the diaphysis level. Axial localization osteosarcom were distributed like this: 64.29% at the skull, 14.29% at the spine, 14.29% at pelvis area, and 7.14% at ribs. The histological aspects were different, especially based on the presence of osteocites and osteoblastes proliferation. The radiologic aspects were characterized by the presence of same osteolisis areas and bony proliferation existing sometimes an alternation between those two aspects and their intensity varied considering the evolution of the disease.