A Recurrent, Slow-Growing Retropharyngeal Lesion

Repeated surgical treatment and long-term outcome of a cat with vertebral vascular hamartoma

“…Additionally, follow-up CT images 15 months after second surgery revealed that the whole vertebra became progressively deformed but, surprisingly, did not progress subsequently. Although vascular hamartoma can potentially recur at its site of origin because of its continuous growth pattern [4], this growth is self-limited in mature animals [12]. This behavior of hamartoma would explain why the lesion in our case showed recurrence at relatively short period after surgical resection but subsequently did not recur over the long subsequent follow-up period.…”

“…A hamartoma is an overgrowth of a normal organ due to excessive proliferation of various cells of different tissue types that is usually considered nonneoplastic [4]. In humans, hamartomas are classified as vascular (angiomatous), lipomatous, chondroid, or neurogenic according to the primary tissue type [12]. Although histologically normal, sometimes a hamartoma is defined as a benign tumor because the organ overgrowth can lead to functional impairment of adjacent tissues and recur at the original site [12].…”

“…In humans, hamartomas are classified as vascular (angiomatous), lipomatous, chondroid, or neurogenic according to the primary tissue type [12]. Although histologically normal, sometimes a hamartoma is defined as a benign tumor because the organ overgrowth can lead to functional impairment of adjacent tissues and recur at the original site [12]. In small animals, hamartomas have been reported in dogs [1,2,6,7,11] and cats [3,5,[8][9][10] in different organs, and vertebral vascular hamartoma has been previously reported in two cats [5,10].…”