Hard pea-sized lump found on my Staffies leg- please help

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. I went to a 24 hour vet (not my own) and the vet didn't know what it was and they didn't have the capabilities at the time to do a needle aspiration or take a biopsy, they advised me to make an appt with my own vet

Can anybody advise, Im worried

Thank you
Brent and Oscar

I'm so sorry for the loss of your other companion. They leave us fealing so empty, don't they?

As I said in the other post, I think you should get a biopsy with your regular vet & then just take things from there. A hard lump is always worrying, but can be so many things which can be dealt with fairly easily. Try not to worry too much - easier said than done, I know.

Please keep us updated - hopefully it'll be nothing sinister.

thank you gilly, a hard lump can be so many other things, google can be your friend or not, Im not a vet and self-diagnosis is not helpful as you have so many questions, whats if its this, what if it that etc.

thank you for your condolences for my other Staff, Jess was 17 years old, a kind, gentle, loving dog that tried all the way, she will be heartily missed. I cant have two Staffs pass on me and my partner this is why Im frantic about our Oscar

Sorry to hear you lost Jess, she was a good age
Sometimes it's best not to google, please keep us updated with Oscar

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 Sad

Please let us know what she finds out. to you & Oscar

Thank you Jenc, it means a lot

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

Sometimes a vet is reluctant to take the whole thing, making a far more intensive intervention, if it isn't necessary. They usually go for the least invasive procedures first.

If you trust your vet, trust their judgement.

Thank you Gilly

If it's malignant (and hopefully it isn't), then any part of the lump will show it. If it's just a fatty tissue lump the vet may recommend leaving alone unless it gets too big or starts to bother him.

Any news yet?

Hi Carlyn

Thank you for your reply, so when our vet did the FNA and he couldn't see anything bad when he looked through his microscope on the slide, then that's a good thing right?

No news yet, the vet did say it could be up to a week depending on how busy the lab is. This wait is torture, absolutely torture, is no news good news?

No news yet, its been 10 days!!!

Im hoping no news is good news. I called on Monday they said his lab results are not in yet??

brentoscar wrote:No news yet, its been 10 days!!!

Im hoping no news is good news. I called on Monday they said his lab results are not in yet??

I think everything's taking that bit longer at the moment.

thank you gilly

I'm sure if there had been anything nasty you'd have been told!

I agree with Gilly, if it was bad they would have been in touch

I got the results back last night from the FNA, the lab results DO NOT show any cell activity that would indicate cancer, which is a huge relief. My vet advised that the FNA isn't completely representative of the mass as it only took a small sample from it, so he recommended the entire mass be removed and sent to the lab for analysis. He said that he doesn't think its ominous but 'just to be on the safe side' to send the mass away. I was always under the opinion that FNA's are particularly accurate and you can rest assured that a negative FNA would be enough. The uncertainty is a nightmare !

brentoscar wrote:I got the results back last night from the FNA, the lab results DO NOT show any cell activity that would indicate cancer, which is a huge relief. My vet advised that the FNA isn't completely representative of the mass as it only took a small sample from it, so he recommended the entire mass be removed and sent to the lab for analysis. He said that he doesn't think its ominous but 'just to be on the safe side' to send the mass away. I was always under the opinion that FNA's are particularly accurate and you can rest assured that a negative FNA would be enough. The uncertainty is a nightmare !

If your dog has never had a bad reaction to anaesthesia & you can afford the lumpectomy then I would advise you to take that course. Biopsies are brilliant, but can only show results from the mass the needle takes from.

If you can go there, do it.

If you can't, that's fine - wait & see what happens. As long as your pupster is happy, that's the main thing.

Good Morning All

After consideration, we are taking in Oscar to get the lump completely removed on his leg to be on the safe side tomorrow, (lumpectomy). He is also getting other lumps removed to be safe. The vet thinks these other lumps are lipoma (fatty tissues). All of these lumps will go to the lab to be analysed so my fingers are crossed tightly

Hopefully the results will be good & will put your mind at ease. Fingers & paws crossed here for you & Oscar

Thanks Jenc, I hope all goes well, poor little fella

Oh, good luck - I'm sure it'll all go really well & there will be no cause for concern!

Let us know how he gets on.

thanks gilly

How is he? I've been thinking about him!

Thanks Gilly, we got Oscar back this afternoon, they took out 6 lumps and the hard pea sized lump on his leg, he's very patchy. The lumps are on their way to the lab we'll hear back in about a week to ten days about the results, fingers crossed

Poor little fella please let us know the results when you do. Give him a hug from me.

Will do, he's really tired at the minute bless him

Great news!

Happy New Year to everyone

Update on Oscar:

We took him to the vets to initially get one lump on his upper leg removed, I spoke with the vet and I told him he had a few more lumps that we were not happy with, the vets said they could remove them in one go as to avoid Oscar being under anaesthetic too many times. There were 6 lumos in total and at the last minute I found another two on his abdomen, so he went to surgery.

He came out looking like a patchwork quilt but still full of vigour.

All the lumps, including the initial one we took him in for were either lipomas, benign fibromas or hardened cysts, the one we were really concerned about initially with was in actuality a hardened cyst.

However the last two I found and put in at the last minute to be removed, one of them was mast cell tumour (MCT). The vet did say that the tissue margin removal was enough around the MCT to be successful and she expects Oscar to be fine. If it wasn't for the initial lump and our nervousness around it we would not have found the MCT as it was an innocuous-looking wart and may have been overlooked....wow!

I'm hoping the MCT doesn't come back, we are monitoring him and checking him for lumps and bumps. I did read from the University of Kansas that 90% of dogs that get MCT do not have a reoccurrence of it, I hope that's true.

Thank you all so much for your kinds words and encouragement through this, its been a tough old slog.

On another note, is there a thread for diets as our Oscar is a finicky eater?

Thank goodness you found the other lumps, lets hope he stays clear from now on
This section may help you
https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/f29-staffordshire-bull-terrier-diet-nutrition

Thanks for keeping us updated