Splenectomy on 10 year old dog - experiences?

[ThisKhakiJoker]

We’ve been thrown though a bit of a loop with our lovely dog and just wanting to see if anyone has been through anything similar. I think the experiences of other people who aren’t emotionally invested would be helpful.

We have the bestest, loveliest boy in the world :D. He is 10 and half golden retriever/half standard poodle.

In a nutshell over the last couple of months he’s been off his meals (still eating treats), seemed a bit more lethargic, had a cough. Took him to the vets, he had lost weight. They took bloods and gave him an antibiotic thinking maybe kennel cough but told us to bring him back for reweighing.

Took him back and he had gained some weight back, cough was better (coughing a few times a day rather than few times an hour) however vet not happy that he was still coughing so took more bloods which showed even higher inflammation markers.

Referred to a more specialist vet who recommended a CT scan. CT scan results today show a large mass on his spleen.

They cannot see any obvious spread. Lungs etc look clear on CT. Lymph nodes look slightly enlarged but vet said that could be due to anything such as a viral infection. She thinks his cough is coincidental.

Vet is recommending surgery. Cost is not a problem for us.

We are torn with the ethical implications. Is it fair to put a ten year old dog through an abdominal surgery. What if they get it out and everything if great but 6 months later something else horrible comes along. On the other hand at 10 he’s not young but not quite geriatric yet either.

We cannot leave things as they are as there’s a strong possibility the mass will rupture. I think our options are essentially PTS or surgery.

All not helped by the fact I have a DC with a birthday next week and this is the DC who is closest to dog then of course Christmas too :/.

All that said I just want to do the right thing by my boy and do what’s best for him. I would love for him to have a few more years which the vet said could happen and the fact there was no obvious spread on the CT goes on his favour. But also don’t want to put him through a horrible surgery either.

Any experiences would be helpful.

Just wanted to add that apart from being off his meals and needing a lot of encouragement to go out for walks he still wagging his tail a lot, chased a cat yesterday on a walk, still thinks he’s neighbourhood watch in the front room window etc :) .

My JRT had a mass on her spleen, she was 11. I didn't want her put through an op but didn't put her to sleep for some months. She was still eating and taking anti inflammatory meds but as soon as she stopped I knew it was time to let her go. On reflection, I probably left her for too long; she was badly anemic (which is what happens with a spleen mass), but it's a difficult decision when they are still running around and eating. The vet never really suggested having it removed due to her age. The other thing to consider is with no spleen your dog is likely to become diabetic & anaemic as I've said above.
Just for info her sister two years younger was diagnosed with a cancer mass at the same time. This was on her rump & I had it removed twice along with chemotherapy. She lasted two more years but it was an external op not internal, sadly the mass kept returning.
i hope you can make the right decision for your dog

Have you talked through the prognosis following surgery with your vet. My vet discovered a mass on the spleen while my dog was on the table for unrelated surgery. His view was that surgery was only going buy v little time. We chose to put him to sleep.
In your position I would not be going ahead with surgery.

"with no spleen your dog is likely to become diabetic & anaemic"
No it isn't.

Vet said impossible to know prognosis without knowing if it’s benign or not. Which they will only know following histology of the mass after removal. She was positive in regards to the fact the CT didn’t show any obvious spread and he’s not anaemic.

Argh we love him so much, difficult this pet owning ❤️.

Have nursed a lot of splenectomy’s and most bounce back very quickly so I wouldn’t be put off by the surgery itself. Speak to your vet about the prognosis post surgery though as I believe most don’t live longer than 6 months.

You don’t want to not do anything as it can be at risk of spontaneous rupture and they bleed to death quickly which is horrible to watch. Happened to a friends dog and she didn’t know he had a splenic tumour.

We had our much loved Goldie PTS, when the time came. She had cancer but we decided not to put her through surgery. For me, this is the kindest thing to do and I wouldn’t go back and change anything.

I’m so sorry your beloved dog is sick. 🐾💔

Well sorry but my dog did with a spleen mass. OP asked for experiences I was giving mine!

I think I'd go for it. Even if benign the splenic mass dogs are often uncomfortable and a bit "off"- not sure why- maybe because of the stretching of the splenic capsule over the mass.
Once their spleen is in the clinical waste bin (or soaking in a bucket of formalin out behind the back of the building awaiting getting sent off for histo) they tend to feel better quite quickly.
Don't wanna be cocky but abdominal surgery is not necessarily that big of a deal. Dogs can form adhesions but are less prone to this than people, and the spleen is only loosely attached to the stomach. It's actually an easy surgery to do, though you tend to sweat a few bullets if it goes pop as you're easing it out of the abdomen- I've always got every artery forceps in the building at the ready just in case. Once out, there's not much in there to be sore or go wrong really. The abdominal wall incision/closure is midline- so skin and fibrous tissue (the linea alba is the seam down the middle). So it's not like having a thick layer of cut muscle fibres to heal.
Very gentle lead exercise only for 10-14 days, et voilà.

You said like an amazing vet! Great reply

In your case I would go for the operation. I don’t think you’d be able to let go of not knowing if it was benign or not.

I had to put my 10 year old dog to sleep due to a tumour earlier this year because I knew he would have been miserable during the treatments. The difference is that I knew it was not benign, it was very aggressive cancer and at most, with treatment and surgery, he could have got another 6 months or so to live. You are potentially and hopefully in a much better position.

Thank you so much everyone, this has been really helpful for us making a decision. The vet surgeon is not in today but we will speak to him tomorrow.

Thank you so much for this, really helpful. The vet has sent us a copy of the ct report, do you mind if I PM you a couple of questions off the back of that? No worries if not though I understand. We will be speaking to the vet surgeon tomorrow.

Message away though I don't do CTs and barely understand the reports. I come from a time before CT scans were really a thing. Very nice to have, and might have prevented me from doing a splenectomy on "Buster" all those years ago- a gorgeous lurcher about the same age as your dog, couldn't see any liver lesions with the not-very-good ultrasound machine we had then opened him up, got spleen out, found two tiny looking secondaries in the liver, closed him up, woke him up, he did great for a month then secondaries grew rapidly and he was euthanased a couple of weeks after that

I've been lucky in that the ones I've done with no visible spread when they're actually open on the table, have indeed turned out to be benign and did well and were fixed.

Do it. It will rupture and it's a horrible death. My previous Lab had the the operation at 11.5 and it gave him a new lease of life. Tumour was 3.5kg.

I'm a vet also and would absolutely go for the surgery if my dog was in this position. They do generally do very well after abdominal surgery of this kind. Modern anaesthetics and pain relief are very good and so I'd be confident about keeping my dog comfortable whilst recovering.

Ten years is not that old and I may think differently in a 13 year old. I wouldn't risk leaving it to rupture as that would be painful for the dog and extremely traumatic for you. All the best, whatever you decide to do.

(Of course there is a risk that if the lesion is malignant, he wouldn't have months and months afterwards, but I wouldn't feel personally that I was wrong to take the chance with surgery because I don't think he would suffer due to having it).

Thank you so much for your thoughts. We definitely won’t be leaving it either way. I think we will be booking him in for surgery. Will sleep on it for tonight and speak to the surgeon tomorrow to see when they can fit him in.

The CT report in a nutshell says there’s a large mass on the spleen, they don’t know if it’s benign or metastatic. It does also say “Splenic and sternal lymphadenopathy: reacve or early metastac.” . Our vet said this basically means that the lymph nodes are slightly enlarged but she thinks if it was metastatic it would be more obvious spread by now.

The vet did not mention a part of the report which said there a 2 small (less than 1 mm) pulmonary nodules, I’m assuming that is too small to be anything concerning.

All in all I think we’ll go for it and cross our fingers, thank you.

Thank you, that’s helpful.

My 8 year old dog had to have an emergency op to remove his burst spleen as he just collapsed out of the blue one day.
The vet said if we find out during the operation it was caused by a tumour it would be kinder to put him to sleep there and then.
We were really lucky it wasn't caused by cancer and he bounced back after the surgery.
We had him another five lovely years before he died of heart failure.
Ask your vet for advice, ours said there is no problem with our dog living a normal life without a spleen.

I had a Shih-tzu cross years ago (late grandma’s dog, so very attached to her) who got a mass on her spleen aged about 12. We did decide on surgery, as she was otherwise healthy and very fit and active for her age, and she bounced back quickly and lived until she was 19 with no issues at all.