Cardiac metastasising rhabdomyosarcoma in a great Dane

Abstract

RHABDOMYOSARCOMA is a malignant neoplasm thatarises from striated skeletal muscles or muscle progenitor cells(Dagher and Helman 1999). It is the most common mes-enchymal tumour in human beings, but is rarely observed indomestic animals (Dagher and Helman 1999, Illanes 2002).Rhabdomyosarcomas are known to be very aggressive, andinvade the surrounding tissue and metastasise to other organsin domestic animals. Primary and secondary tumours involv-ing the heart are uncommon in dogs; Machida and others(2003) reported that such tumours had a prevalence of 0·19per cent among all dogs admitted to hospital, the majoritybeing haemangiosarcomas. This short communicationdescribes a case of cardiac metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma ina dog.A seven-year-old great Dane was presented to theDepartment of Internal Medicine, Faculty of VeterinaryMedicine, University of Uludag, showing clinical signs oflong-term inappetence, ventricular dysfunction, respiratorydistress and proteinuria. The animal died while hospitalised,and was examined postmortem with the owner’s consent.