Tumor removal questions

[ashana]

Hey everyone,

Long time no post :doh:

We have a little girl here who is 14 months old.
She has never suffered any respiratory or other illness for this time, has always been a good healthy weight and eats well.
About 2.5 months ago we noticed a small lump (mammary tumor) that we have been watching. Due to some of the behavioral issues Cutie displays we decided against surgery at this time. She is a barberer but tends to now only barber he cage mates who are 5 other females. She is not an overly confident rat but super friendly.

Anyway, her tumor, which we believe to be benign due to its shape and feel is fairly sizable now. She is still moving well, healthy apart from the tumor, eats well and is generally in good spirits. She tip toes most of the time when walking to stop the tumor dragging on the ground.

Anyway my question...(s) :giggle:
For those that have had benign tumors removed:
Did the tumor grow back after removal?
How long after did it grow back?
What was the overall recovery time after surgery?
And last but not least:
Do you wish that you had NOT got the surgery and just continued with Quality of life in preference to quantity?

We are getting a second vets opinion on Saturday but i just want to be armed with information from others that have been through this please.

Thanks
Aimee

 

[jorats]

I've had a couple of rats with benign mammary tumours, (they are all usually benign) I always do the removal if the rat is in good health, but I also have my rat spayed at the same time. I truly believe having the rats spayed helps prevent a recurrence.
Recovery depends on the size of the tumour which is why to always get it done while still small. But I'd say no more than a week, most likely less if they are in good health.
Not doing surgery is not an option for me. I can't bear to have a rat with a tumour, have their life cut short because of it... but again, that all depends on the health of the rat. Rats with crappy lungs should not undergo surgery.

 

[ashana]

Hi Jo,

Thanks for the reply.

Those that have had them removed, did they re-occur?

The reason i ask this is because if we go ahead and do the surgery we would like to at least give Cutie another couple of months tumor free.
It would be horrible if the odds are straight after removal another occurs IYKWIM?

This is such a tough decision as i don't want her to suffer and hate seeing that ugly thing sucking her life but in saying this i would want to keep her Quality of life good if this is going to reoccur :wallbang:

Thanks

 

[jorats]

We've always done the spay so the one or two that did come back, didn't come back till almost 10 months later, when the girls were near or over 30 months old.
But if you don't do a spay, it's not really the same tumour coming back since your vet will be removing all mammary tissue surrounding the tumour but she may have other tumours develop in other areas. Mammary tissues spread to almost all the body except for right up on the back, but it's all on the sides and bottom.

 

[lindsayfawn]

It's for sure a hard decision to put your rattie through surgery. We have had three girls go through tumor removal. They were all spayed at the same time. Raina's tumor didn't come back for quite a few months and when it did come back it came back hard and fast and ended up rupturing before we got her in for surgery. She had lost so much weight because of the tumor she wouldn't have qualified for surgery anyways. We had to put her down.
Emily and Leia had their tumors removed but when Leia had her's done the Vet found larger tumours in side and she only survived about a month or so after the removals. Emily is doing well and we haven't seen any tumours yet but it's only been a few months now.

I think only you can make the decision on what to do. Sometimes I think that we should have let Leia live her life out with the tumours because she would have lived longer but I don't know for sure and neither did the vet. As she says "I wish I had a magic ball that I could see these things."

You'll know what to do for your girl. Good luck in what ever you decide.

 

[lilratsy43]

I have only had one rat with a tumor that had to be removed..(Three of my rats died of other causes before reaching that age)..I had it removed and before it had completely healed (it was nearly healed, just all the hair had not grown back yet) another one started in the same place, I did not have the second one removed because she was rather old and it was slow growing...then she got another near her butt...but she was such a trooper, she had two tumors, hind-leg degeneration, thin hair but the happiest little rat, she still loved eating and scooting around!

I currently have a rat with a tumor under her arm-pit but I am dead broke! I am trying to save money to have the tumor removed and have her spayed at the same time. I will not have it removed until I can get her spayed at the same time. I have also debated with the idea of rehoming her only because I am soo poor right now (pretty much do to all the surgeries my rats had this past summer) if/when I start working it will only be for a few weeks, so I am not sure I will ever have the money, I am feeling like a really bad rat momma right now....

 

[ashana]

Thanks everyone for the information,

I am not sure if the vets here (i am in Australia) will do a spay at the same time or not. Obviously for medical reasons i would like to get her spayed at the same time to give her more life if possible but by the sounds of it if the spay can not be performed at the same time she will most probably get another quite quickly.

Lauren, sometimes love has to be enough. Everyone is having a financially hard time right now and from the experience i have with rescues (or dumped animals) as long as you are able to feed, water, give love and know when the time to say goodbye is here and you can afford the humainly way to put the animals to sleep i feel that it is more than some animals get. You are not a bad mum, you are not in a great financial position but that doesn't make you bad.

 

[joolzratbag]

I am not sure if the vets here (i am in Australia) will do a spay at the same time or not.

Hi Aimee,
I know there are definitely some in Aus that will, and even spay just to prevent tumours, but not sure about your part of Aus. It probably depends on individual vets, same as here.

For those that have had benign tumors removed:
Did the tumor grow back after removal? never
How long after did it grow back? n/a
What was the overall recovery time after surgery? varies depending on health and strength, but my younger does that had spays too didn't need to stay in hospital tank long, going straight back to main cage the following morning
And last but not least:
Do you wish that you had NOT got the surgery and just continued with Quality of life in preference to quantity? never because it has always increased quality too, I've never had a bad surgery experience (except 1 baytril burn).

 

[Debbie]

We've had more tumors removed than I care to think about. :sad3:

I've grown to be very good friends with my main vet and she's very honest about a lot of things. So much so, that I've learned about a lot of risks that vets don't generally tell us pet owners, to help keep us calm etc. Our vet surgeon is amazing and has been featured in small animal magazines around the country etc. So I have trusted him to many (some very tricky) surgeries. However, even routine tumor removals can be sometimes lengthy and tricky. I've had a few ratties that were on the younger side when they had their tumors removed (this of course was before I started spaying all my females young). I've indicated, in the past, that I wanted to also have them spayed, if time allowed. The thing with any small animal surgery is to get in, get done and get them up as quickly as possible. The longer the surgery...the more risks.

In the girls I had asked to have spayed if time allowed.....none were. It also makes a HUGe difference by the size of the tumor. I wouldn't count on there being time to do a spay as well, if the tumor is any bigger than a cranberry or grape. Our vet just won't do a spay if the tumor removal goes past about 20 minutes...and they usually do because our vet is very thorough and tries to get all the tumor and some sorrounding tissue to be sure.

I guess it's pretty obviously I'm not an advocate for spaying while having a tumor removed. It just seems to risky and too much for the rat. And I say that knowing I have one of the best rat surgeons in the US.

Ok with all that said:

We generally do not see the tumors come back. Though we have seen it happen. It's really hard to tell if it's the exact tumor returning, or one popping up in the same spot. I do think in my cases, it was the same tumor returning. I've only seen it happen twice, and in both cases the tumor returned with a vengence within just a couple week's time. When they went back in and also removed more sorrounding tissue...the tumor didn't return. Also, in both of those cases, the vet warned me that he tried to get it all, but needed to get the rattie "up" and didn't want to risk her to take more time to keep working on it.

Recovery time can vary depending on the rat's age, overall health and even what type of sutures are used. i.e. if internals are used...the recovery can be around a week, maybe even less. But if you end up with externals (we've had these due to surgery time and the vet not wanting to keep the rat under longer for internals), you are also looking at a collar and that is not a fun recovery for you or your rat, as they are in that thing for 7-10days.

I have had only two cases where I wished I had not done the surgery....and took that wish back as soon as they recovered. Buttercup was 2 years old and had an internal tumor develop. I thought she was a gonner, but our surgeon felt it was probably a uterine tumor that could be removed from a spay. It turned that Buttercup not only had cystic ovaries and a walnut sized tumor, it had wrapped around a kidney. The vet did a spay AND removed the tumor along with that kidney. Buttercup was stuck in a collar for two weeks and had a hard recovery. BUT after about a week, she was doing quite well, and lived another 8 months before the tumor came back and took her from us.

My Phoebe (who I posted here about recently) just had a peri-urethral tumor removed, that the vet had to remove part of her urethra too. She came out of surgery with a catheter and collar. She was pathetic and I even said I wish I would have been given the option to let her go. But we nursed her back to health and she's doing just fine now at 2 1/2 years old.

I'm with Jo....I can't see NOT doing the tumor removal if the rat is otherwise healthy. But most importantly, you have to have a vet you can trust, that has a lot of experience with surgery on rats.

Tumors suck....no matter what way you look at it. :gaah: But I just have to get them off if I can. We have a rattie going in for a tumor removal this coming Monday. :sad3:

 

[ashana]

Thanks Deb,

We ended up getting the tumor removed (more issues from that in another thread)... right now i am wishing we didn't do it as Cutie is not happy and is making a mess of herself