Anyone had any experience of mast cell tumours on their dog?

[Piffle]

It seems likely that our adored and beloved 14 mth old girl has one on her muzzle.
She is due to have it taken out in 2 weeks and then off to the labs for testing, they are fairly sure it is mast cell tumour despite being uncommon at her age.

Am verging between h it'll be fine she is young, we caught it early and being utterly petrified she is going to be seriously ill which I could not bear.
This is the dog who lifted me out of severe PND and PTSD issues and I cannot bear to think if anything bad happening to her.
Any advice/experience at all?

oh darling
Ruby had one when she was 2
hang on let me find the threads

She is 9 now :smile:
They have to get it out with good clearance, you need a good surgeon. I can recommend ours he is fantastic but not close to you I know. They should do it NOW not in 2 weeks ffs. They did hers same day

The unusual thing about mast cell tumours is that they get smaller and bigger all the time - has it done this? I thought it couldn't be cancer as it kept shrinking

6 weeks only - I just assumed it was a wart type thing until it grew bigger like overnight and went pink and shiny.

The reason they are waiting is Zola is due to be hip and elbow scored on that date and it saves knocking her out twice over.
If it changes in the meantime they will do her as emergency

I would REALLY appreciate those threads

Vet said it is tied up with allergic reactions, and Zo did show up with allergies last summer

Thanks CD, helpful as they are the same breed after all.

here it is
Reassuring stuff from miggy on there who is a vet
clearly that was crap and they didn't take it out same day (false memory there!!)

i think these things v common in redhaired dogs tbh

DIET very important - do you feed dog food? Apparetnly this is bad for tumoureseque pups and Roo has had veggies (esp broccoli and green leafy)/mince/pilchards/tuna and seaweed powder, glucosamine and fish oils since her tumour.

Roo's was under the skin so didn't see it
She has subsequently had two benignish skin lump tumours, they looked black though (I spent ages trying to pull one off as I thought it was a tic ergh)

Zola is VERY fussy and hardly eats anyway, she won't eat fish not any kind, she eats chicken or lamb plus royal canin biscuits and some tripe....
That's it

Hi Piffle

It is scary isnt it when there is something wrong with your beloved dog.
One of our retrievers had a mast cell tumour on the back of her neck when she was about 5 it was only tiny.
Luckily my vet removed it ASAP, they took huge margins around it which thankfully came back as all clear and after a few weeks she was fine.
She lived on to a ripe old age of fifteen and was an eternal puppy.

I hope Zola is the same.
Good Luck

I remove these all the time. Firstly it may not be a mast cell tumour it could be a histocytoma (very common non-spread in young dogs) they look exactally the same there is no way to tell which it could be until they are sent to the lab.
Secondly with good margins around and beneath the mast cell tumour the prognosis is very good and the vast majority never recur. This is particularly true if it is caught early.
We used to think that all mast tumours had spread before we found them, however, recent reasearch shows that grade 1 have not spread and only 20% of grade 2 might have spread (grade 3 do exist and are really nasty, but I have only have one in 13 years and I remove these nearly every week).
So fingers crossed it's a histocytoma.

CountessDracula my vet told me broccoli is poisonous to dogs - you might want to stop giving her that.

I just found a lump on my dogs back at the weekend, about the size of a golf ball - can't see the colour of it as he's a hairy golden.
Off to the vets tomorrow but this thread has worried me.

Vet has ruled out hystiocytoma said it is not presenting at all like one.
The thing about margins is scary it is less than one cm below her nose on her muzzle...

I have been told that the ones (mast cell tumours) on muzzles have a guarded prognosis hence vet deciding not to bother with aspirating it just wanting to get it out asap.
oh CD re broccoli

BROCCOLI: There has been a bit of confusion where broccoli is concerned. Broccoli is very good for dogs, however, if the daily intake exceeds more than 10% of the animals diet ? problems can occur. The toxic substance is isothiocyanate and can cause gastrointestinal irritation.
NOTE: Broccoli toxicity was first noted in dairy cattle raised in California. When there was an over abundant broccoli crop, it was fed to the cattle. Problems may have occurred because cattle have rumens and digest things much more thoroughly, therefore taking in more of the toxic substance.

Piffle I write here speaking as a vet and the owner of a dog who had mast cell tumours. I second what Lizcat said about there being a chance of this being a histiocytoma. Your dog is the right sort of age. What sort of dog is it? - some breeds are more likely to develop them than others.

Whatever though, if your vet thinks this is a mast cell tumour it needs to be dealt with ASAP. Do not wait for hip and elbow scoring to be done. If your dog is 14mth now then it is old enough for the schemes and they can bring the appt forwards to do that. I would however also urge you to consider asking for a referral instead to see an oncology specialist about this. The nose is a really difficult area to operate on and adequately remove the margins required to excise a mast cell tumour. Specialists will be better experienced to advise you of the best course of action here if the diagnosis is confirmed.

My own old dog was a black labrador. She developed 4 mast cell tumours at different times in her life. The first was when she was 4 years old - a small mark on her, just a bit red that initially I thought nothing of but it persisted and then grew a bit. It was removed and she did well. She had another 3 appear at different sites during her life time - of course I watched her like a hawk and knew every inch of my dog! They were removed immediately I found them more or less, and none produced any problems in the long term. It seems she had a predisposition to them as there is no indication that any of them were related directly to the ones before. I was lucky that all of them were in areas where radical removal was possible. She was put to sleep for unrelated issues in March last year, and was almost 15yrs old. They worried me like mad of course - I have seen clinical cases that do not do well where they are not presented until too late, or where the mast cell tumour grade has been much more agressive than my dog suffered from. There is however always hope.

Good luck - do let us know how things go.

Thank you
I was already planning to ring tomorrow, postpone the scoring and to ask for urgent removal.
Vet seemed confident about the op itself, saying that mast cells (if that was what it was) were difficult to assess visually and he would only know more once he was in there removing it.

My girl is a ridgeback, we show her and she has been very successful, but before that that she is just the most incredible family pet and I utterly adore her as do the kids.

She suffered from some type of allergy last summer to grass (allergy testing proved nothing) but with piriton june - sept she was ok.

Vet said mast cells can be tied up with allergies, he did say mast cells were not what he would expect on a young dog but that he could pretty much rule out hystiocytoma given the growth pattern of the lump.

I am tempted to go to another vet (who does have an oncology vet on its books) to ask for a 2nd opinion.
We have Zola comprehensively insured so want whatever is best for her

thanks for the vet input I am exceedingly grateful

Right have got the op brought forward to this Thursday
Vet says he is just taking the lump, small op, get it tested
Results in 3 days
Then decide if anything further (cancerous margins?) needs doing
He says she is young and healthy, he does not want to cut too much without knowing what it is, he has to knock her out to do needle aspiration so he said he might as well just remove the lump.
He says if there is any cancer we can start treating it as soon as the result is known. He says he refers to a canine oncology unit in such cases for assistance in treatments

So there we are....

Exellent Piffle - that sounds like a good plan. Let us know how she does - I'm sure your vet already knows, but if this turns out to be a mast cell tumour and he has only removed the basic lump but not a big margin, even if the histopathology sees clear margins then she still needs to see an oncologist to decide about further treatment.

Thanks for that, yes he said that the first op may not be enough but he would rather not go the whole hog yet, he can start more work once he knows what is what and would hate to take her nose out for nothing.
I've popped a pic up on my profile if anyone fancies a looksie and offer an opinion

Very hard to tell much from that picture, but I certainly wouldn't exclude a histiocytoma as a possibility from what I see there.

Well she goes in tomorrow, a good friend had a look at it for me (she is a vet nurse and now a groomer) and she said her bitch had the same sort of lump with a foreign body inside....
Oh god that would be such a relief

LOL carpetcleaner

Never red or angry I seriously thought it was a wart, nit started off very small like a human small pimple, firm pale pink lump, I thought perhaps a puncture from our younger puppy play biting with her or something.
Then it got a little bigger and I thought oh a wart, then it got much bigger really quickly. over say a 6 week period.
It has has a few dry bits flake off but it is a smooth hard shiny pink lump.

oh and thank you

Any updates piffle??

yes got results yesterday
hystiocytoma it was larger underneath than on top so needed 7 stitches 2 f which have popped but were covered by a scab which has come off and looks manky...
Off to vets to get it checked
But pure relief.....

yipeeeeeeeee! Great news.