Clinicaland cytological staging of transmissible venereal tumour at the Botucatu Veterinary Hospital.

The canine transmissible venereal tumour is a transplantable neoplasm of great scientific interest for its versatile biological behaviour and its complex mechanisms of evolution. The main objective of this research was to obtain information in order to carry out a better clinical and therapeutic approachof patients with this tumour, twenty dogs with clinical and cytological diagnosis of TVT were studied. Theclinical staging (TNM) was carried out, thecytomorphologicclassification and the nuclear malignancyand cytoplasmic criteria were obtained. TheChi-square test and the Mann- Whitney test were used for data analysis. Eighteen animals were mixed race with a 2 to 10 range of age, and the main location of the tumor was the external genital and the predominant cellular type was plasmacytoid. Themalignancynuclear and cytoplasmic criteria,with the exception of the perinuclear halo,were similar to those described in the literature. During the RNM classification, two tumours were categorized as T3M and one as T3N1; the other tumours were classified in different T degrees. Despite the lack of statistical significance for the employed method, in general, a good clinical relationship was seen between TNM staging and cytopathological findings, suggesting that both provide greater certainty about the degree of aggressiveness, progression and prognosis in the patients with TVT, as it occurs in other typesof tumours. Use of staging in this tumour can serve as a criterion to suggest the possible evolution and type of therapy.Nevertheless we recommend future research to help define the benefits of using the TNM clinical staging in TVT.