NEOPLASMS IN THE DOG’S LIVER.
Lipoma. Trasbot describes two fatty tumors in the liver of a bitch, one of them as large as an infant’s head. It had a yellowish white color, and had taken the place of the proper hepatic tissue.
Malignant Tumors. These are rather common. Sarcomatous masses with round and fusiform cells in a fibrous stroma; encephaloid with a delicate stroma and large alveoli filled with cells, and having a soft brainlike consistency; carcinoma with dense and thick fibrous stroma and nests of cells in comparatively small numbers; and epithelioma with flattened, cylindroid or other epithelial cells in masses often affecting a tubular aggregation, are seen in different cases. Sometimes apparently primary, they can more commonly be traced to pre-existing centres of the same formation on the course of the portal vein or elsewhere.
Symptoms. A gradual wasting and emaciation with a yellowish pallor of the mucous membranes are characteristic. Trasbot gives the excessive atrophy of the temporal and masseter muscles as pathognomonic. Ascites is a usual complication. Enlargement of the liver, as shown by percussion of the right hypochondrium, and, in case of flaccid abdomen, by manipulation, and attendant signs of tenderness are corroborative. Variability or loss of appetite, and vomiting is not uncommon, and in case of primary or secondary deposits in other organs in the abdomen, thorax or elsewhere, the symptoms resulting from functional derangement of such organ may be found. Treatment is hopeless.