Hello-New member here, need advice

Hi

My name is Brent I have an 8 yr old Staffie called Oscar. I am enquiring if there is a medical part on this forum? My Staff Oscar has just been to the vets to get a pea-sized hard lump on his upper exterior leg checked. It's under the skin and not protruding through his fur, it has been there for about 6 months, increased in size slightly and I'm worried to bits as we have just lost our other Staffie last week. Can anybody advise

Thank you
Brent and Oscar

Hi there, and welcome.

It's very difficult to 'diagnose' online as we are not vets.

Be assured, though, that most lumps & bumps (especially in older dogs) are harmless fatty growths & need no treatment.

As it's a hard lump I would be slightly more concerned, but even if it's the dreaded 'c' word, it has been caught early & hopefully can be treated successfully.

Obviously if it's just a fatty lump there's no need to worry.

You've done the right thing by referring it to the vet - now's the time to trust your vet & take things as they come.

Good luck & please do let us know how you get on.

Thank you gilly, I posted my message to see if any of our members had the same experience I had, I know that the dreaded 'c' can come into play, I was hoping to know if a lump is hard as it more than likely to be the dreaded 'c'

I posted in the medical part of the forum as well:

https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/t68618-hard-pea-sized-lump-found-on-my-staffies-leg-please-help#1040348

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Hi from me & Katy, welcome to our forum Sorry to hear Oscar has a worrying lump Katy has a few now but vet said they are fatty as you can move them.
I really hope Oscar's lump is nothing to worry about
Please let us know the results.

Hi Jenc

Thank you for your replies, I do appreciate it. Oscars lump is a hard lump not a soft fatty lump like a lipoma, and you can move this hard lump as you can use your thumb and forefinger to get behind the lump. He has had it though, as my partner told me, not for 6 months but for about a year and a half to two years. In this time Oscar has not been ill or shown typical cancer reactions so that should be a good sign I'm truly praying. The vet said that his lymph nodes were all OK, and listened to his chest and abdomen, all OK, he said Oscar was in great condition. Im going in tomorrow hopefully to my vet, I spoke with her this morning and she said she will aspirate the lump and take a look at the cells, she did say that she would also send the sample off to the lab, that can take from two days to a week, the wait is going to be hard

We went to the vet this morning and he gave Oscar a Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) essentially putting a needle into the mass and extracting a cell sample to see if anything was suspicious. He checked his sample and he could not see anything sinister, a great start. He will be sending the second sample away to the lab as they have more expertise. The next step which the vet seemed to recommend is either a biopsy of the mass or a lumpectomy to analyse it further. As Oscar will be under general anaesthesia in both the biopsy and lumpectomy wouldn't it make sense to just go for the lumpectomy where they clear the whole mass from Oscar and then analyse it? If there is something in the lumpectomy it would have been removed in its entirety as we have removed the whole mass? It doesn't make sense to do a small biopsy with Oscar who will be under general anaesthesia as they still may miss anything sinister whereas a lumpectomy just takes the whole mass out in one go?

Advice would be great on this