Batista A 12 years old cat was in otherwise fine health condition but lately mass developed very fast and went numb since this point the mass made it difficult for her to chewing and swallowing

Staging & Metastasis :

Distant metastasis is very possible with feline oral SCC so it is important to rule out any potential metastasis through tumor staging and patient screening

Staging is also mandatory to determine the appropriate therapeutic plan and the prognosis of the case :

FNA : of the mandibular LN

Skull & Thoracic Radiographs : to determine the extent of the tumor and possible metastasis

CT Scan : CT is very informative used for both pre-surgical planning & staging of the cancer

CT scan shows no enlargement of mandibular and medial retropharyngeal lymph nodes

Also no signs of distant metastasis in the lungs

Luckily, all tests looked promising there was no evidence of metastasis.

*It’s rare to find a case like this one which was massive with no evidence of metastasis and fits for surgery

Surgery is considered the first line of therapy with better prognosis is early stages

we performed radical left mandibulectomy with a lateral and ventral combined approaches extending from symphysis to the temporomandibular joint

Surgical management of FOSCC faced many challenges including the occurring sublingual location, massive invasion of bone, surgical excision to achieve adequate surgical margins, difficulty considering the given fact of the small stature and anatomy of the cat skull.

Clear margins was objective by obtaining 10 mm margins in all possible directions even the mucosa of the buccal and lingual sides of the mandible with skin margins even the tumor did not cross the premolar line, symphyseal osteotomy line was necessary to get free margin in the rostral direction with removal of intact tumor capsule

One centimeter does not sound like a lot of tissue, but in a cat with an already large tumor, such margins in all dimensions can represent a huge loss of hard and soft tissue. This loss of can result in significant functional challenges with post operative considerations luckily this went better than expected she ate voluntarily 1 day postoperatively then nasogastric tube was removed with no need for temporary or permanent PEG feeding tube.

histologically mass was confirmed OSCC of the left mandible, from the level of premolars and extending caudally till the temporomandibular joint most cases are to far advanced to consider surgery