Doppler and Elastography as complementary diagnostic methods for mammary neoplasms in female cats

Feline mammary neoplasm is the third most common neoplasm in domestic cats with most of these malignancies requiring early detection and aggressive therapy. For early diagnosis, invasive complementary methods are used; they include fine-needle aspiration, scraping of the ulcerated lesions, excisional biopsy and histopathology findings after mastectomy (Giménez et al., 2010). The use of conventional and Doppler ultrasonography has been described for the differentiation of breast masses (Feliciano et al., 2012), however, there are no reports of the use these techincs in the evaluation of mammary tumors in cats. 