Angiotropic metastatic malignant melanoma in a canine mammary gland

An eleven-year-old spayed female Yorkshire Terrier presented with a sublumbar mass and upon ultrasonographic examination, was revealed to have a mammary gland tumor. Black to reddish colored masses, located in the visceral peritoneum of the sublumbar region was observed on laparotomy with masectomy of the right side. In the laparotomy, we observed reddish masses multifocally located in the serosal membrane of the large intestine. Histopathologic examination of the intestinal and abdominal mass showed highly invasiveness into the muscle and metastasis of melanocytic tumor cells through the blood vessels. The mammary glands showed abnormal hyperplasia of melanocytes, destruction of the normal glands by tumor cells and infiltration of some lymphocytes in the pool of melanocytic cells. We have identified a malignant melanoma containing an angiotumoral complex in which tumor cells occupied a pericytic location along the microvessels with intravasation determined by immuno-histochemistry for S100 protein and protein kinase C-α. Histologic findings in this dog lead to a diagnosis of an angiotropic metastatic malignant melanoma.