Clinical, laboratory, diagnostic and prognostic aspects of canine lymphoma: a retrospective study

During the period of 8 years, 120 dogs affected by lymphoma were referred to the veterinary teaching hospital of the University. Canine lymphoma was classified and staged using a standardised diagnostic approach that involved the acquisition of detailed clinical history, physical examination and extended laboratory workup including lymph node cytology. Additionally, immunophenotyping was available in 22 cases. Multicentric lymphoma was the most common form of disease identified clinically, while the cytological classification revealed the B-cell polymorphic centroblastic subtype as the most frequent type of lymphoma in the study. Furthermore, the influence of several prognostic factors in relation to remission rate, relapsing rate and survival time were evaluated for 16 patients treated with a specific chemotherapy protocol and for which a complete follow-up was available. The results of our study suggest that chronic inflammation may represent a negative prognostic factor shortening both the relapsing and the survival times, while pre-treatment with steroids may have a negative effect on the survival time.