Use of kit internal tandem duplications to establish mast cell tumor clonality in 2 dogs.

Mast cell tumor (MCT) is one of the most common tumors of dogs. Some affected dogs develop multiple cutaneous tumors in various locations over months to years. In these cases, it is not clear whether the tumors have arisen de novo, or if each tumor represents a recurrence of the previously excised original tumor (ie, distant metastasis). We used the presence of an internal tandem duplication (ITD) in c-kit to demonstrate that in 2 dogs with recurrent cutaneous MCT that had developed over 1-2 years, each recurrent MCT tumor possessed an identical ITD when compared to the original MCT, indicating that the multiple tumors were clonal in origin. This study demonstrates that similar to the situation in humans, specific somatic mutations identified in oncogenes found in canine neoplasms can be used to provide evidence of tumor clonality.