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Primary Liver-Cell Carcinoma (Hepatoma) in the Dog^*

(From the Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Medical Center, School of Medicine, Denver 7, Colorado)

1. A review of the literature revealed 35 cases in the dog of carcinoma, presumably of liver-cell origin; 8 of adenocarcinoma, evidently of intrahepatic bile duct origin; and 2 hepatic cancers not studied histologically. Data on age, sex, and breed were too incomplete to be conclusive.
   
2. In a group of 4 cases of hepatoma in the dog,inappetence,vomiting, weight loss, emaciation, and an upper abdominal tumor were symptoms noted 1 to 6 months before euthanasia. Resection of one hepatoma was successful and probably would have resulted in complete cure if the dog had been allowed to live. Resection might have been curative in 2 of the other 3 dogs with hepatoma if operation had been made earlier.
   
3. Three of the hepatomas arose from the in ferior surface of the liver near the mid-line, displaced adjacent organs and tissues weighed 585 to 1,550 gm., were separated from the liver by fibrous connective tissue or directly impinged on compressed liver parenchyma, and consisted of large, soft to firm, tan, light-brown, tan-red, or dark-red lobules divided into nodules 2 to 55 mm. in diameter. The fourth hepatoma was associated with advanced cirrhosis of the liver and with atypical proliferation of bile ducts and sinusoids. The dog affected had had severe icterus during life. Microscopically, the lobules of hepatoma consisted of very large neoplastic liver cells in solid masses intimately related to proliferated vascular spaces resembling sinusoids. Portal triads were entirely lacking within the lobules of the hepatoma. The neoplastic cells had granular or vacuolated acidophilic cytoplasm and round or oval nuclei varying greatly in size, fairly frequently numbering two to a cell, displaying occasional mitosis, and supplied with beaded irregular chromatin and large acidophilic nucleoli. No case showed metastasis.
   
4. Ten cases of nodular hyperplasia of liver cells were compared with the 4 cases of hepatoma. The nodules were usually multiple, fairly firm, tan, red, red-tan, or dark red, and were 5 to 25 mm. in diameter, or varied extremely from 1 to 60 mm. Microscopically, the liver tissue around the single nodules was compressed, but fibrous connective tissue was not increased. The nodules consisted of irregular liver lobules with retention of central veins and portal triads in each lobule. The polyhedral cells within the nodules were arranged in cords one to many cell layers thick, with distortion of the intervening sinusoids. The cells of the nodules were smaller in both cytoplasmic and nuclear volume and exhibited less histologie evidence of nuclear activity than did the neoplastic cells of the hepatomas.
   
5. Both hepatoma and nodular hyperplasia of liver cells occurred in dogs in advanced senility or 11 to 16 years of age. Sex preponderance was not striking in either condition, and data on breed were inconclusive.
   

^* This investigation was aided by a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the United States Public Health Service.