Clinical and pathological aspects of bovine lymphoma affecting the spinal cord

Abstract

Clinical and pathological features of bovine lymphoma involving the spinal cord were evaluated through a retrospective study of the necropsy database from 2005 to 2017. Thirty-four cases of bovine lymphoma were found, 24 of which had central nervous system involvement restricted to the spinal cord. All cattle were Holstein cows 2.5-12 years-old (median age, six years-old). The clinical course was 7-21 days, and the main neurological sign was pelvic limb paresis (81.8%). The lymphoma often affected the spinal cord in a multifocal manner. Lumbar segments were the mostly affected sites (23/24), followed by the sacral segments and cauda equina (20/24), cervical (5/24) and thoracic (5/24) segments. Tumors were in the epidural space, peripheral to the pachymeninges (extradural) and between layers of adipose tissue. In addition, two cases had progressive hemorrhagic myelomalacia. Further organs affected included the lymph nodes (100%), abomasum (79.2%), heart (75%) and kidneys (45.8%). Microscopically, all lymphomas had a diffuse pattern, with no meningeal or medullar infiltration. According to the REAL/WHO classification, all these neoplasms were mature B-cell lymphomas. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was observed in 95.8% (23/24) of the cases. The following subtypes were observed in the DLBCL group in descending order: immunoblastic (60.9%, 14/23), centroblastic (26.1%, 6/23), anaplastic (8.7%, 2/23) and T-cell rich (4.3%, 1/23).

Enzootic bovine leucosis in cows on farms in Almaty and Turkestan regions of Kazakhstan

“…Although our findings were sometimes difficult to interpret, these results confirm the evidence for the multicentric distribution of EBL in adult cattle [18]. To our knowledge, the current study is the first to report the description of microstructural changes involving lymph node trabeculae and myocardial fibres from leukemic cows.…”

Enzootic bovine leukosis in a cow

“…The clinical signs are variable and unspecific, such as body weight loss, inappetence, pallor, weakness, and decrease in milk production (2). However, specific clinical syndromes may also develop according to the site affected by the lesions, including enlargement of peripheral and visceral lymph nodes, tachypnea, stertorous respiration, dyspnea, subcutaneous edema, dysphagia, diarrhea, indigestion, tympanums, congestive heart failure, decubitus, hindlimb lameness, and paraplegia (4,5,8). Although the time between the onset of clinical signs and death varies (5), most cases tend to have subacute to chronic course (2).…”

“…The recent veterinary literature on tumors of domestic animals follows the Revised European-American Classification of Lymphoid Neoplasms (REAL), provided by the World Health Organization, which identifies each subtype of (8). The application of this classification scheme in some studies indicated that the majority of EBL are diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (4,5,9).…”