The Results Are In

Quackers lump did in fact come back as a lipoma or fatty type lump. However it was not your run of the mill lipoma which was my concern. Those deep attachments on the underside of the mass were attached to muscle . It is what is termed an infiltrative lipoma which is a benign neoplasm (cancer). I know benign and neoplasm really should not go in the same sentence. What this really means is the fatty tissue invades the surrounding tissues, in this case the muscle fibers. It can cause issues with the function of muscle or other tissues it invades. It is very hard the remove all of the cells since they are interlaced in the surrounding tissues, so often times all the abnormal cells can not be removed, and the mass has a good chance of regrowing. However this type of mass generally does not spread widely through out the body like other cancers. It just effects surrounding tissues. This was the concern for our dog since her mass was located so closely to her spinal column. If the entire tumor can not be removed radiation is a common therapy to shrink the abnormal cells and prevent tumor regrowth. Luckily all the tumor cells appear to have been removed on our girl so we require no further treatment, except a close eye for future masses. Quackers did however have a reaction to the suture that was placed in the subcutaneous layer under her skin. It is swollen and slightly hot. It should resolve on its own with no treatment as the suture breaks down and dissolves. So even though it was not quite the tumor type we had hoped for, being just a lipoma, we still have a very good prognosis.