Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

CASE REPORT article

Front. Vet. Sci.

Sec. Veterinary Surgery

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1678285

This article is part of the Research TopicPrecision Diagnosis and Targeted Therapies in Companion Animal OncologyView all articles

Case report: Primary Leiomyosarcoma of the Canine Gallbladder with Intraoperative Indocyanine Green Near-Infrared Fluorescence Imaging

Provisionally accepted
Jongchul  YunJongchul Yun1Yujin  KimYujin Kim1Kyung-Mee  ParkKyung-Mee Park2Sungin  LeeSungin Lee1*
  • 1Department of Veterinary Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea
  • 2Laboratory of Veterinary Surgery & Ophthalmology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

A 13-year-old castrated male, Maltese was presented for abnormal findings of gallbladder on abdominal ultrasonography without clinical signs. Abdominal ultrasonography revealed a severely distended gallbladder and a heterogeneous echogenic mass in the gallbladder neck. No evidence of metastasis was observed. Cholecystectomy was performed with indocyanine green near-infrared fluorescence imaging for real-time visualization of the biliary tract that contributed to improve surgical outcomes. In the histopathological examination and immunohistochemical analysis using smooth muscle actin staining, the gallbladder mass was confirmed as a leiomyosarcoma. The patient has been followed up for 18 months without any signs of recurrence or metastasis. This is the first reported case of gallbladder leiomyosarcoma in dogs. Leiomyosarcoma should be considered a differential diagnosis for dogs with gallbladder mass. The histologic low grading, the absence of microscopic residual tumor and metastasis relate to good prognosis.

Keywords: canine, Gallbladder, Leiomyosarcoma, Indocyanine Green, Near-infraredfluorescence

Received: 02 Aug 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yun, Kim, Park and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Sungin Lee, sunginlee@cbnu.ac.kr

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.