PANCREATIC NEOPLASMS. TUMORS.
Often malignant, and secondary. Melanoma in white horse. Carcinoma in mare and dog. Epithelioma. Debility, icterus, abdominal swelling, emaciation. Treatment: laparotomy, or potassium iodide.
Tumors of the pancreas are quite frequently malignant, and show a preference for the head of the organ. They may be primary but are more frequently secondary.
In gray horses melanotic tumors are found, in connection with similar formations externally, and especially as age advances. Brückmüller found them of varying size, from a pea to a hazel nut, scattered through the pancreas and adjacent tissues.
Gamgee records a carcinoma of the pancreas of a mare.
Carcinoma is more frequent in this organ in dogs, the neoplasm having an irregular form, an imperfect line of delimitation from surrounding parts and a hard, fibrous stroma enclosing caseous centers, undergoing fatty degeneration.
Nocard reports an epithelial tumor of the head of the pancreas in a bitch. The animal which had been ill for six weeks was debilitated, emaciated, and icteric with a marked abdominal swelling. It died two weeks later, and necropsy revealed a whitish sublumbar tumor, the size of a large apple, with irregular rounded projections. This pressed on the posterior vena cava, surrounded the vena portæ and gall duct and completely closed the latter. Microscopic examination showed it to be an epithelioma. The liver was undergoing cirrhosis.
Treatment, usually hopeless, would be by laparotomy. If actinomycosis were present give potassium iodide.