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Old August 29th, 2010, 08:25 PM
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Dr Lee Dr Lee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MiniTiga View Post
Has anybody had experience with a bladder tumor. We got a sample of the tumor to test -- but the lab said the test failed. A tumor in the bladder isn't usually benign, so we can say, it's cancer.

To say I am disillusioned and frustrated with veterinary science, given my experiences with misdiagnoses, and the fact that I can't get a clear answer from vets, I am reaching out to this forum to see if anyone has had or has a cat with bladder tumor.
I am sorry that you are disillusion with veterinary science. Certainly medicine can be frustrating and veterinary medicine has its own flavor of problems when compared to human medicine.

1) How do we know it is a bladder tumor? If we see it on an ultrasound, it is not unusual for severe inflammation and/or blood clot to look identical to a tumor. So either empirical treatment with recheck or further diagnostics would be recommended. If they saw it on surgery, then it is very unusual for the lab test to not identify a proper biopsy bladder sample but you may want to try again.

2) If it is a bladder tumor, then unfortunately you are correct, most are malignant. Occasionally in cats you can have a benign mass such as a leiomyoma but malignant bladder tumors are more common and have a poor prognosis. In dogs, it is usually TCC (Transitional Cell Carcinoma). In cat, while we do see TCC, SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) is more prevalent. In dogs, we usually recommend piroxicam but it is not typically recommended in cats. Typically we will use meloxicam however this medication is not curative but palliative. Surgery can be pursued but does not in any way guarantee an elongation of survival unfortunately.

Again, we need to establish that it is a malignancy as sometimes, what look like masses can be focal inflammation of the tissue.

I hope that this helps.
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Christopher A. Lee, DVM, MPH, Diplomate ACVPM
Preventive Medicine Specialist With a Focus on Immunology and Infectious Disease
myvetzone.com

Last edited by Dr Lee; August 30th, 2010 at 11:20 PM.
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