Lipid-rich carcinoma of the mammary gland in a cat

Abstract

A 1.5-year-old female, intact, clinically healthy cat presented for a subcutaneous mass of the ventral abdomen. Surgical excision and microscopic examination of the mass were performed. Histologically, this was a discrete, unencapsulated, multilobular, expansile mass, which compressed the surrounding normal mammary tissue. Lobules were composed of tubuloacinar structures formed by atypical round to polygonal cells, which contained foamy to microvacuolated cytoplasm and variably sized, intracytoplasmic, distinct vacuoles causing nuclear peripheralization. Neoplastic cells demonstrated intense and diffuse immunoreactivity for cytokeratin and lacked immunoreactivity for vimentin. The vacuolar contents stained positively with Oil Red-O and negatively with periodic acid-Schiff and Alcian blue stains. Histomorphologic, histochemical, and immunohistochemial analysis support a diagnosis of lipid-rich mammary carcinoma. This is the first report of a cat with a lipid-rich variant of mammary carcinoma.