Fatty Tumor Removal

[Marilyn Minni]

My dog Maggie is 5 years old.  She has developed a tumor, about the size of a walnut on the side of her back.  I will be taking her to the vet next week and they'll be doing a biopsy.  If they determine it is benign, which I'm quite certain it is, would you recommend having it removed surgiclly?  Thanks for any advise you can provide.

 

Marilyn Minni

Rochelle Park, NJ

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Usually with lipomas (fatty tumors), removing them or not depends on the size and the location of the mass. The vet will probably give you a recommendation based on those things after the needle biopsy. 

My guy has several lipomas which we have chosen to leave alone for the time being. But JD is older and has other health issues which played a role in my decision. Another member here, Leslie & Halas, just has several large lipomas removed because there was the fear that they could interfere with nearby organs. She posted a couple of discussions about it, I'll see if I can find you a link. 

[F, Calla & Luca]

I agree with Karen. First find out what it is and what it's likely to do.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Here you go:

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/anyone-have-experience-wit...

and 

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/frankenhalas

[Leslie and Halas]

Thanks.  I was just going to try to find these.

[Leslie and Halas]

Karen posted my most recent discussions, which involved the removal.  There's some info in those discussions about my thought process.  Here are 2 older discussions, from when I first found the lipomas and had them checked.  It was not quite a year between the time we found the first lump and the surgery to remove them.  My vet advised me to just leave them alone until they got really big or started to bother him or interfere with movement.  The one in his groin area was the one that got really large, but they went ahead and removed all of them.  Recovery wasn't too bad, but Halas has a way of being extra-pathetic sometimes.  He pulled out his stitches from one incision, and had to get staples, so that delayed things a bit.  He is finally cone-free.  His incisions look great.  In fact, the only one you can really see now is the one that had to be stapled, and that's just a little red now.  I'd see what your vet advises.

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/lipoma-lipoma-send-halas-r...

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/this-time-i-m-a-little-wor...