Neoplastic and Congenital Diseases
Hepatic neoplasms are rare in goats. Two cases of hepatocellular carcinoma have been reported. One was an incidental finding from a 4-year-old Angora goat detected during meat inspection (Rousseaux 1984).
The other was in a 10-year-old Nubian male presenting in a thin and moribund state. This goat had a pheochromocytoma and a leiomyoma in addition to the hepatocellular carcinoma, and attribution of clinical signs to the liver tumor would be difficult (Lairmore et al. 1987). A case of primary hepatic fibrosarcoma has been reported in a Toggenburg goat (Higgins et al. 1985). Two cases of bile duct carcinoma have also been reported in goats, with metastases to the lungs (Chauhan and Singh 1969; Paikne 1970). One case presented with weight loss and ascites, the other was an incidental finding at slaughter. Two additional cases of malignant cholangiocarcinoma in goats without metastases have been reported (Rodriguez et al. 1996; Dominguez et al. 2001), as well as one benign cholangioma identified in a healthy-appearing goat during slaughter inspection (Puette and Hafner 1995). Lymphosarcoma has been identified in both diffuse and nodular forms in the livers of affected goats at necropsy (Craig et al. 1986).Both a primary cholecystic adenocarcinoma in the liver and multifocal insulinomas in the pancreas were diagnosed at necropsy in a recumbent 13-year-old female Boer goat with an elevated serum GGT. This was believed to be the first report of the occurrence of either tumor in a goat (Yau and Rissi 2014).
Liver metastasis of a primary gastrointestinal spindle cell tumor in the rumen has been reported in a 9-year-old castrated male Pygmy goat. The case was notable for two reasons: first because neoplasms of the forestomachs in ruminants are rare; and second because the goat did not present with signs referable to the liver or gastrointestinal tract.
Rather, it presented with stertor, suggesting a respiratory condition. At necropsy, adhesions between the rumen and diaphragm were noted, and the respiratory difficulty was attributed to diaphragmatic dysfunction (Pesato et al. 2018).Congenital diseases affecting the liver in goats are rare. There is a report of a Shami goat kid born normally that stopped nursing on the second day of life, developed an abnormal gait, diarrhea, and weakness, and died on its fifth day. At necropsy, the goat showed polycystic kidneys and an enlarged liver, which exhibited multifocal hepatic fibrosis, bile duct ectasia, and hyperplasia. The combination of polycystic kidneys and hepatic fibrosis with bile duct ectasia were considered to be suggestive of the human congenital condition known as Caroli's syndrome (Hananeh and Faizee 2014). There is also a report of 11 cases of congenital portosystemic shunt seen in goat kids over a 13-year period in California. All showed neurologic signs consistent with hepatic encephalopathy, as discussed earlier in this chapter. Both male and female kids were affected, and multiple breeds were involved, including Boer, Toggenburg, Saanen, Nigerian Dwarf, and mixed- breed kids. The age range of affected kids was 3.5-11 months (Kinde et al. 2014).