Friday, July 25, 2008

Mast Cell Tumor, Grade II

Well, seems like Happy Dog is hitting old age with a bang. We had the following 'mass' removed from his leg and biopsied...

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

What does this mean? Well if you know medical terms, this will help you:

From the biopsy:


Biopsy: There is a densely cellular, unencapsulated mass of neoplastic mast cells, admixed with mature eosinophils. Thumor cells are round with moderate amounts of finely granular amphophilic cytoplasm and round, cnetral nuclei with finely stippled chromatin and inconspicuous nucleoli. There is moderate anisocytosis and anisokaryosis. No mitoses are observed in 10 hpf.

Microscopic Findings: Mast cell tumor, grade II

Comment: Grade II mast cell tumors are moderately differentiated, and are associated with a low to moderate metastatic potential and a 3 year survival rate of approximately 55%. Recurrence following excision is fairly common in grade II and III tumors.

From the web:
Currently in dogs, mast cell tumors are histologically categorized into grades I, II, and III (Table 1). With surgical resection only, the percentages of dogs surviving 1,500 days after diagnosis have been reported to be 83%, 44%, and 6% for grades I, II, and III tumors, respectively.2 Grade I mast cell tumors tend to be locally confined to the skin and nonmetastatic. Grade II mast cell tumors are generally local, but some can be aggressive with regional node and distant organ metastasis. Grade III mast cell tumors tend to be biologically aggressive, possessing a high propensity for regional and distant metastasis. Although histologic grade remains the gold standard for predicting the biologic behavior of cutaneous mast cell tumors, other prognostic factors include tumor location, proliferative indices, breed, recurrence, c-kit mutations, c-kit staining pattern, and microvessel density.


What does it mean to me? It means "sit and wait". Considering the average age of a French Mastiff is 6 years and Happy just hit 10 years... I'm glad that it is going so well. And if you look at the link just above, you'll see most male mastiff's die from cancer. If you read the 'general' writeup in books, it says Mastiff's live to be 10 to 12 years. Since the link above is to the Dogue de Bordeaux Society and that is a survey of owners... I'm betting they are more accurate. I feel very lucky we have had Happy this long. He is old. Now we just wait. And it has added to an already very stressful two weeks. More on that some other time. Just wish me luck on making a Ben 10 Omnitrix watch for a birthday cake tomorrow. Sigh.

8 comments:

pam said...

Happy Dog is in our prayers, as you all are as you deal with his old age and illness.

{{Hugs}}

If you ever need to talk, I'm there.

Canine Carnival 38 | pamibe said...

[...] Mast Cell Tumor, Grade II - One Happy Dog Speaks [...]

Kim @ What's That Sm said...

Poor Happy Dog...
I hope he is at least comfortable and not in pain...

oddybobo said...

Poor Happy. you too! post pics of the Ben 10 cake, that is my next project here.

Quality Weenie said...

Sending prayers for Happy and Lance and Maggie send licks.

Mrs. Who said...

Bless his heart...and y'alls'.

Bou said...

Happy is such a good dog, even if he is the first dog that tried to have sex with me and because of his sheer weight and size, nearly succeeded. Oh the trauma! (for me...) But I love that big goof and I am taking solace in the fact that he is so well loved. There is not a dog around that could have asked for a better family... better boys to love on him... and to care for him. We don't know the answer, but either way, he's living a good life NOW and for that I am happy.

Vered said...

So sorry you're going through this!