Sometimes We Find Cancer Early.

A few months ago I wrote about Breezy, a Rotweiller who had been battling cancer for several years. Happy and exuberant, she wasn't much more than a pup when we removed a tumor from her intestine. The pathologist said it was malignant. Against the odds, Breezy just kept on being happy and exuberant. But after five or six years, another tumor appeared on her elbow. This one had spread. She went through some more surgery and chemotherapy, and it gave her another year or so. Then, last week, her owner called and said, "it's time." In the excitement of coming to the clinic, she was the same old Breezy. Her owner agreed with me that it might be a little easier if she weren't so happy and exuberant.

An autopsy showed that Breezy had widespread cancer in virtually all her major organs.

There are many different kinds of cancer. Sometimes owners, like Breezy's "Dad", bring them to our attention. Occasionally finding them is due to chance.

Mac, a Bearded Collie, had a nasty looking tumor on his lower eyelid. We knew it was almost certainly benign, but it was growing, and eventually, Mac began blinking more, and the eye always looked a little messy. He needed his teeth cleaned too.

After I removed the tumor, one of my techs, Donna, was beginning to clean Mac's teeth. "Hey Doctor Roen," she said, " I think you should look at this." She had found a tiny black lump on Mac's lower lip. She thought it might be a melanoma, and she knew melanomas in a dog's mouth are often highly malignant.

The pathologist said it was highly malignant. We took Mac back to surgery and removed a much wider section of his lower lip. It was a rare stroke of luck to find this when the tumor was so small, and may have saved Mac's life.

During his annual physical examination and vaccination visit, I was doing a rectal exam on a Visla named Cory. About as far in as my finger could reach I felt a small lump in the wall of his rectum. Cory had a history of lots of little lumps on the outside of his body, and our microscopic examinations of needle aspirates from them were all benign. Getting a sample of cells from a lump with a syringe and tiny needle is neither hard to do nor painful for the dog - unless the lump is 4" up his rectum.

Further examination and surgery at the Washington State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital has cured Cory. The tumor was benign. However, if it had grown large enough to cause symptoms - straining to poop - surgical removal would have been much more difficult and likely to result in permanent damage to his pooping mechanism.

Ruby is an older Springer Spaniel. Her main symptoms were weakness, and very pale gums. She had anemia - a dangerously low blood count. More specialized testing indicated the anemia was due to blood loss. An X-Ray and diagnostic ultrasound pointed towards something bleeding in her abdomen - probably either her spleen, or maybe her liver.

We did surgery on Ruby yesterday and removed her spleen with a large bleeding tumor embedded in it. She is doing fine today, as I write this column. Unfortunately, the pathologist will probably tell us it was malignant, and most malignant spleen tumors have already spread by the time they are discovered.

Ruby should feel good for a few months, and there is a chance she will live out her natural life free of cancer. At least we have reason to hope.