Clinical, histopathological and immunohistochemical study of mammary neoplasm in bitches

The objective was to conduct a clinical and epidemiological study of mammary cancer in bitches, considering their reproductive history, physical examination, histopathological and immunohistochemical diagnosis. We used 60 breast tumors which were divided into groups (group 1 - group 2 and benign - malignant). We evaluated data from the reproductive history, physical examination and histopathology and immunohistochemistry for VEGF. The study of reproductive history had 90% of irregular estrus, 86.63% of the dogs were not tested with contraceptives and 83.33% were not castrated. On physical examination, there was no difference (p>0.05) between groups regarding the consistency of the masses, surface regularity of the tumor and anatomic location of tumors. As for the masses, there was a difference between groups (p=0.0077), with 0.78 +/- 1.13cm for group 1 and 1.81 +/- 2.29 cm for group 2. 40% of benign masses and 60% of malignant masses were diagnosed, according to the types of malignancies. For VEGF, the average values were 2.22 +/- 0.89 for malignant tumors and 1.66 +/- 0.91 for benign, with differences between groups (p=0.0315). The mammary tumors do not exhibit characteristics of reproductive history and clinical examination to help the differential diagnosis, and histopathology is the only method for completion of diagnosis and immunohistochemistry which can be used for injury prognosis.