The presence of cats in urban environments has a long history. In Italy, stray cats are protected by national and regional laws, and programs of neutering and reintroduction to colonies are ongoing. Colony cats have been widely studied from a behavioral perspective, while surveys regarding their causes of death are limited, although they may provide relevant information related to public health and cat welfare. This retrospective study provides pathological descriptions and statistical analyses of the causes of death of 186 cats from 100 colonies in the city of Milan. Inflammatory processes represent the primary cause of death (37.7%) and include common feline infectious diseases such as feline panleukopenia (67.5%), particularly in kittens, and feline infectious peritonitis (32.5%), most common in adult cats. Trauma was found to be a common cause of death of young/adult cats (14%) with a generally good body condition, while severe parasitosis was less represented (2.6%). The death of old cats was statistically associated with organ failure (24.7%), particularly renal failure, and tumors (11.8%). Knowledge of the most common causes of death of colony cats could make an important contribution to the health monitoring of these cats and sanitary control of their habitats and provide information on possible related emerging animal welfare concerns.

The relationship between tumor morphology and clinical behavior is a key point in oncology. In this scenario, pathologists and clinicians play a pivotal role in the identification and testing of reliable grading systems based on standardized parameters to predict patient prognosis. Dogs with bladder urothelial carcinoma (BUC) were recently proposed as a “large animal” model for the study of human BUCs due to the similar morphology and metastasis locations. BUC grading systems are consolidated in human medicine, while in veterinary medicine, the BUC grading systems that have been proposed for canine tumors are not yet applied in routine diagnostics. These latter systems have been proposed, decade by decade, over the last thirty years, and the reason for their scarce application is mainly related to a lack of specific cutoff values and studies assessing their prognostic relevance. However, for any prognostic study, reliable grading is necessary. The aim of the present article was to give an overview of the BUC grading systems available in both human and veterinary pathology and provide an extensive description and a critical evaluation to support veterinary researchers in the choice of possible grading systems to apply in future studies on canine BUCs.

A pet rabbit (female, 8 years old, and mixed breed) with symptoms of dyspnea, apathy, and weight loss was treated for an acute respiratory infection. Due to the lack of improvement, it was referred to the Imaging Diagnostics Laboratory of the Department and Clinic of Surgery for a computer tomography scan of the thoracic cavity. The examination revealed the presence of air in the pericardial sac, a pneumopericardium, along with pulmonary emphysema. A few minutes after the examination, the rabbit developed circulatory and respiratory failure and died. Necropsy confirmed the presence of a pneumopericardium and pulmonary emphysema, and revealed, in the tracheal lumen, the presence of a tumor histologically consistent with hemangioma. A spontaneous pneumopericardium occurs when air from the respiratory system moves into the pericardial sac. This is the first case of the simultaneous occurrence of tracheal hemangioma and a pneumopericardium in a rabbit.

Testin (TES), a protein localised in the cytoplasm and belonging to the LIM family of proteins, is part of the cytoskeleton localised along stress fibres and recruited to focal adhesions. It is considered a tumour suppressor protein in humans and decreased TES expression has been shown to increase cell motility and decrease cell-cell contact. In veterinary medicine, TES has only been studied in rat testes and, more recently, also in canine testes. The expression of this protein in testicular tumours is unknown. As the dog has been proposed as an animal model for the study of human testicular tumours, studies on canine TES may provide useful information for both species. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to demonstrate the expression of TES in the most common types of canine testicular tumours. For this study, paraffin blocks of 166 canine testicular tumours (53 Sertoli cell tumours, 50 Leydig cell tumours, and 63 seminomas) were retrieved from the archive of the Department of Pathology of Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences. Sections were obtained for complete description of the tumours, confirmation of the histological diagnosis, and immunohistochemical TES antigen location. Sections from 10 normal canine testes were examined as controls. The presence of TES was also demonstrated in fresh tissue from three types of canine testicular tumour. The diagnosis was confirmed in the 166 tumours, and TES was immunohistochemically demonstrated in 98 % of them and in all 10 normal testes. All tumour types had reduced expression of TES, even if not related to the tumour growth pattern or mitotic index, demonstrating that TES expression is reduced in canine as well in human testicular tumours. However, the reduction of TES expression appeared to be moderate, and these features were consistent with the evidence that testicular tumours in dogs are often well-differentiated. A complete understanding of the function of TES in cancer processes requires further investigation, but the relative parallelism between normal and neoplastic cells in well-differentiated, mostly benign testicular tumours provides a good basis for studying TES expression in more aggressive tumours, such as prostatic or urinary tract neoplasms.

Neuroglial choristomas are rare malformations consisting of heterotopic mature neural tissue at a site isolated from the brain or spinal cord. In human medicine, neuroglial choristomas are predominantly reported in the head and in the neck, except for one recent case reported in a foot of a child. In domestic animals, neuroglial choristomas are exceedingly rare, reported only in the retina of a dog, in the pharynx and in the skin of two kittens, and within the oropharynx of a harbor seal. A three-year-old intact female Jack Russell Terrier presented for elective ovariectomy exhibited a cystic lesion 2 cm in diameter expanding in the right ovary. Histological examination of the lesion revealed a mass composed of well-organized neuroglial tissue. Immunohistochemistry with primary antibodies against GFAP, NSE, and IBA-1 confirmed the neuroglial origin of the mass. At the time of this writing, 7 years after ovariectomy, the dog was clinically normal. Together with a recent case described in the foot of a child, this case confirms that neuroglial choristoma may also be found far from the skull or spine, supporting the hypothesis that they may arise from an early embryological migration defect.

Introduction: Testin is a protein involved in cell mobility, adhesion and colony formation. In rats, testin presence has been reported in the testes, and its possible role in spermatogenesis has been suggested. Studies in humans also suggest a possible role of testin as a cancer suppressor protein. In the dog, which represents both an important pet species and a good animal model for studying biological and pathological testicular processes, the presence of testin has never been reported. Material and Methods: In the present study, the expression of testin in foetal, prepubertal, adult and aged canine testes was investigated. Testes from 5 adult and 3 aged dogs, from 2 one-month-old puppies and from 2 foetuses miscarried at the end of pregnancy were immunohistochemically examined with a commercial antibody against testin. Results: Testin was intensely expressed in Sertoli cells in every testis examined. Spermatids were also positive for testin in mature dogs and in the testicular areas of the aged ones which were not atrophic. Weak expression of testin was also detected in all testes examined. Conclusion: The present study, the first demonstrating the presence of testin in canine testes, provides the basis for further dog–human comparative research and for studies on the role of this protein in canine physiology, reproduction and testicular pathologies.