Clinical and computed tomography tumour dimension assessments for planning wide excision of injection site sarcomas in cats: how strong is the agreement? Tumour dimension of injection site sarcoma in cats

In injection site sarcoma (ISS) in cats lateral as well as deep margins should be correctly planned for asuccessful surgical outcome. The discrepancy between clinical and computed tomography (CT)measurements of dimension in resectable tumour has led to possible bias that affects the subsequentsurgical d ose. The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate the agreement between clinicaland CT measurements of dimension in newly diagnosed ISS in cats. Fifty-three client-owned cats thatunderwent both clinical and CT measurements of the length and width of ISS were included. CTmeasurements showed a tendency towards being larger than clinical dimensions, and this differenceincreased with increasing tumour size. Based on our results, in further studies focusing on ISS in cats,the kind of assessment used to define tumour dimensions (CT versus clinic) should be declared andspecified to properly consider surgical results and prognostic impact of this variable.