Feasiability of Using Evidence-Based Virtopsy to Answer the Possible Clinical and Post-Mortem Questions, in Veterinary Practice

A post-mortem examination is an important part of evidence-based medicine to understand the deterioration of clinical signs or causes of death in euthanized or deceased individual animals or even populations. Post-mortem analysis is aimed at improving clinical treatment and therapy, confirming a suspected diagnosis, man-aging breeding strategies, and clarifying the forensic cases (e.g., neglect or animal abuse). In analogy to virtopsy in human medicine, diagnostic imaging modalities have been applied in post-mortem veterinary medicine, which we call vetvirtopsy. We hypothesize that vetvirtopsy can be used as a method to answer certain clinical/post-mortem questions to im-prove the diagnosis reliability. In some questions, vetvirtopsy actually can replace conventional necropsy. This overview study aims to compare vetvirtopsy with conventional necropsy for variable causes of death in animals and to define its possibilities and limitations. Deceased or euthanized pets and wild animals were collected. The imaging techniques, such as post-mortem digital radiography, post-mortem ultrasound, post-mortem computed tomography, and post-mortem magnetic resonance tomography combined with image-guided tissue sampling, were used to address the open questions about clinical symptoms or causes of their death. The case series in this project showed that diagnostic imaging techniques are feasible in answering distinct ante-mortem and post-mortem clinical and forensic questions. However, there is an interdisciplinary collaboration between diagnostic imaging and sampling under imaging guidance

A complex histopathological challenge: suspicion of an osteoblastoma-like osteosarcoma arising from the second thoracic vertebra in a cat

Background Reports of osteoblastic tumours are limited to a few case reports in veterinary medicine. Osteoblastoma-like osteosarcoma has been accepted by the World Health Organization as an intermediate form between an osteosarcoma and osteoblastoma. This type of tumour indicates an osteosarcoma, that may resemble osteoblastoma clinically, histologically, and radiologically and have the capability for metastasis. Osteoblastoma-like osteosarcoma has not been described in veterinary medicine so far. Case presentation An eight-year old cat was presented due to progressive ataxia and paraparesis of the pelvic limbs. Imaging confirmed a well-defined, extradural mass originating from the spinous process of the second thoracic vertebra (T2) leading to severe compression of the spinal cord. Decompressive cytoreduction was achieved by removal of the mass after dorsal laminectomy of T1. After recovering from an acute worsening 3.5 weeks after surgery, the cat had an improved neurological status and the dorsal compression was resolved at follow-up 8 months later. A focal contrast enhancing lesion was still evident at the base of T2 spinous process and lung metastasis was additionally suspected. Based on histopathological, radiographic, and clinical features, an “osteoblastoma-like osteosarcoma” was suspected. Conclusions To the best of our knowledge, this is the first description of this tumour in veterinary medicine. In addition, this case report highlights the difficulty in the diagnosis and definition of osseous neoplasia in cats and provides a literature review