BackgroundMammary tumors are among the most frequent neoplasms in female dogs, but the strategies employed in animal treatment are limited. In human medicine, hormone manipulation is used in cancer therapy. Tamoxifen citrate is a selective inhibitor of oestrogen receptors and exerts a potent anti-oestrogen effect on the mammary gland. The aim of this study was to evaluate the adverse effects when exposing healthy female dogs to tamoxifen.MethodsTamoxifen was administered for 120 days at a dose of 0.5 or 0.8 mg/kg/day to either intact or spayed female dogs. The effects were assessed through clinical examination, haematology, serum biochemistry, ophthalmology and bone marrow aspirate examination. Ovariohysterectomy was performed and the uterus examined by histopathology.ResultsVulva oedema and purulent vaginal discharge developed with 10 days of tamoxifen exposure in all groups. Pyometra was diagnosed after around 90 days of exposure in intact females with frequencies increasing during the following 30 days of exposure. Up to 50% of dogs within the groups developed retinitis but none of the dogs had signs of reduced visual acuity. The prevalence of retinitis in each group was similar after 120 days of exposure. Haematological, biochemical and bone marrow changes were not observed. Due to the high risk of developing pyometra after prolonged exposure to tamoxifen, only spayed animals should be given this medication.ConclusionsA dose of 0.8 mg tamoxifen/kg body weight/day is recommended when treating tamoxifen-responsive canine mammary tumors. Due to the high risk of developing pyometra, ovariohysterectomy is recommended.

Background Fraudulent milk adulteration is a dangerous practice in the dairy industry that is harmful to consumers since milk is one of the most consumed food products. Milk quality can be assessed by Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), a simple and fast method for obtaining its compositional information. The spectral data produced by this technique can be explored using machine learning methods, such as neural networks and decision trees, in order to create models that represent the characteristics of pure and adulterated milk samples. Results Thousands of milk samples were collected, some of them were manually adulterated with five different substances and subjected to infrared spectroscopy. This technique produced spectral data from the milk samples composition, which were used for training different machine learning algorithms, such as deep and ensemble decision tree learners. The proposed method is used to predict the presence of adulterants in a binary classification problem and also the specific assessment of which of five adulterants was found through multiclass classification. In deep learning, we propose a Convolutional Neural Network architecture that needs no preprocessing on spectral data. Classifiers evaluated show promising results, with classification accuracies up to 98.76%, outperforming commonly used classical learning methods. Conclusions The proposed methodology uses machine learning techniques on milk spectral data. It is able to predict common adulterations that occur in the dairy industry. Both deep and ensemble tree learners were evaluated considering binary and multiclass classifications and the results were compared. The proposed neural network architecture is able to outperform the composition recognition made by the FTIR equipment and by commonly used methods in the dairy industry. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13040-019-0200-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The correlation between microvessel density and mast cells density in canine mammary tumors was studied. Sixty-five samples of canine mammary tumors, being 24 benign and 41 malignant, were analyzed. The routine Toluidine Blue staining method was used to assess the mast cells. To evaluate angiogenesis, the immunohistochemical expression of CD31 was assessed. There was no significant difference in either mast cells (P=0.44) or microvessel density (P=0.77) between malignant and benign tumors. A positive correlation was observed between microvessel density and mast cells (r=0.39; P=0.011) in malignant tumors. These results suggest that mast cells may play a role in canine mammary malignant tumors development, promoting angiogenesis, similar to some tumors described in the human species.Keywords: bitch, mammary gland, mast cells, microvessel density, neoplasms RESUMO Estimou-se a correlação entre a densidade de microvasos e a densidade de mastócitos em tumores mamários caninos. Sessenta e cinco amostras de tumores mamários caninos

Mitotic index, nuclear diameter, number of nucleolar organizing regions, and Ki-67 expression, in hair follicle tumors of 82 dogs were evaluated. Tissue specimens were used to prepare sections for histological staining for number of nucleolar organizing region and immunohistochemical staining for Ki-67. Tumors were classified as trichoblastoma (n=32), benign trichoepithelioma (n=30), pilomatricoma (n=7), malignant trichoepithelioma (n=6), infundibular keratinizing acanthoma (n=5), and tricholemmoma (n=2). Head, dorsum, and limbs were the most affected sites. Malignant trichoepithelioma presented significantly higher mitotic index, number of nucleolar organizing regions and Ki-67 expression. Regarding benign neoplasms, trichoblastoma presented significantly higher mitotic index and number of nucleolar organizing regions. Ki-67 expression did not differ among hair follicle benign neoplasms. Recurrence was only observed in two cases, with one benign trichoepithelioma and one malignant trichoepithelioma. In the two cases, nodules have not been removed with clean surgical margin. It was concluded that in benign neoplasms of hair follicles, the number of nucleolar organizing regions and Ki-67 expression were significantly smaller than in malignant neoplasm. Clean surgical margins are suggested to be more responsible to tumor recurrences than the number of nucleolar organizing regions, expression of Ki-67, and the mitotic index.Keywords: dog, neoplasm, AgNOR, hair follicle, Ki-67 RESUMO O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o índice mitótico, o diâmetro nuclear, o número de regiões organizadoras de nucléolos e a expressão do Ki-67 em 82 tumores de folículo piloso de cães, entre 2000 e 2006. Os tumores foram classificados como tricoblastoma (n=32), tricoepitelioma benigno (n=30), tricoepitelioma maligno (n=6), pilomatricoma (n=7), acantoma infundibular ceratinizante (n=5) e tricolemoma (n=2). A cabeça, o dorso e os membros foram os locais mais frequentemente acometidos. O tricoepitelioma maligno apresentou índice mitótico, número de regiões organizadoras de nucléolos e expressão do

Adulterants interference on Fourier Transform Infrared analysis of raw milk [Interferência de adulterantes na análise do leite cru por espectroscopia pela transformada de Fourier]