[Gpdd] HEALTH: Mammary Tumor

[pat schuett]

Hi all,

My piggie Doris went to the vet on Sunday for her latest urinary infection; they did an ultrasound and then an x-ray to rule out bladder stones (thank goodness, there were none of those), but in the course of shaving her tummy for the ultrasound, the vet noticed a very tiny bump between Doris' nipples.   She thinks it's a tumor and has recommended that we do surgery to remove it after Doris is finished the antibiotics for her urinary infection.

I've done some research on this since I talked to the vet and am still trying to figure out what to do.  The risks of *any* kind of surgery on a piggie make me really, really nervous.  To make matters worse, there really is no vet in the city that I would consider highly skilled with guinea pigs; one of the local vets (not my regular vet) who often gets referred to for guinea pigs refused to spay my girls because she told me she considered gps in general to be "poor surgical candidates".

I guess one of the things that would make me go ahead with it is that my regular vet did an excellent job on surgery to remove a patch of skin cancer from one of my bunnies; the incision healed well and he seemed to recover from the surgery itself quite quickly --- unfortunately, the cancer had already spread to his lungs and he died less than two months later (another reason to have Doris' bump removed as quickly as possible).

>From what I've read (on Guinea Lynx and elsewhere), only about 30% of guinea pig mammary tumors are malignant, but it does seem like something that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible; even if it's cancer, if it can be removed cleanly when it's still small, she may have a good chance of survival.

Sorry to blather on so long, but it would be great to hear from anyone who has faced a similar decision or who just has an opinion on it.  Doris and I still have about ten days of UTI antibiotics to get through before I have to actually decide how to proceed, but I would REALLY welcome some input from you all...
                           Pat (with piggies Doris, Audrey and Olivia, not   to mention the bunnies Violet and Dave, and the cats Cricket, Lexie and Isis)


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