Please Help: "Organising Seroma"

Well the last 6 days have been the longest of my life. I noticed a hard quarter sized lump the shoulder of my 3 and a half year old Golden Retriever last tuesday. I took him to the vet tuesday night. First thing he said was " I like that I can move it, but I dont like that it's hard". He took a needle/slide sample and said he some some fibrous tissues in it that caused him some concern (looked cancerous) and recommended that it be removed. So thursday he went in for surgery and had it removed. He's doing great but the wait has been driving me absolutley nuts, the thought of my best buddy having cancer makes me sick to my stomach:( I phoned monday, not in, tuesday, not in, called today and the results were in but their was no senior vet there to decode them. I had her read them off and of course none of it made any sense to me at all. The end diagnosis was "Organising Seroma". I googled the term but couldnt find anything other the infections relating to post surgery (he has had no surgery, needles etc). Any help would be greatley appreciated, I could use a good sleep tonight since I havent had one since last week.:fingerscr

Thanks!

Geoff

I'll PM Dr Lee with a link to your thread, Geoff. He's a vet that kindly volunteers his time on the board. Don't know when he'll sign on again, but when he does I'm sure he'll have some advice for you.

Meanwhile, I hope your vet gets back to you soon! :fingerscr

Thank you hazelpack, very much appreciated! That is so kind of the vet to donate his time on the forum!!

Here is a picture of the results...

I will be happy to give my :2cents: but will strongly recommend that you discuss this further with your veterinarian. He may want to contact the pathologist and discuss with further with the specialist to see whether we need to be worried about cancer or not.

What is a seroma? A seroma is a pocket of fluid which typically forms from small blood vessels being ruptured which leak out plasma. It is like a hematoma (pocket of fluid which is blood) except for the fact that there is a reduced number or absence of red blood cells.

So what causes the small blood vessels to rupture in the first place? This is the big question. The pathologist appears to be thinking that this may have arisen from trauma and that the body is "organizing" the inflammation to heal. So this is a good thing.

So could there be cancer? The concern of this is twofold: 1) we do not have trauma in the "history" or another historical fact that we can look back to (vaccine, injection, etc). This means that while trauma could very well explain what the pathologist is seeing, it means that we don't have a definite cause (this is not unusual - dogs can't tell us about what may have happened :) ) and 2) the presence of spindle cells.

Spindle cells are not something that we want to see. However the pathologist states that they "break two of the fundamental laws of neoplasia [fancy name for cancer]". This is a good thing. We don't want them behaving like we normally see groups of spindle cells behaving. Spindle cells tumors arise in the skin or coverings of organs and appear to have a spindle shape to them. Normally you should not see groupings of spindle cells.

However from the pathologist's report she/he states, "I assume this is traumatic." Pathologists will not usually write this if they think that cancer is likely present.

Overall this appears to be good from what I read although I have not seen the pet nor am used to reading this pathologist's reports. It may be that the fluid pocket and cell accumulation is from some unknown trauma and the vets may say that they will just want to do some rechecks to make sure that there is not a recurrence.

I hope that this helps. Please let us know what the vet says. :pawprint:

Thank you very much for taking the time to post that. I will definitly be speaking to the Vet who originally looked at Mylo and then followed through with the surgery. I think he originally said the "spindle cells" are what caused him the concern and suggested the lump be removed. Obviously I cant watch him 24/7 but I can not think of an incedent where he would have recieved any direct trauma to the area, and he has not had any needles or anything in that region. One thing I did notice is that his harness rubs directly on the area where the lump was (he cannot wear it now that he has stiches). Maybe when he pulls it causes stress on the area? Just a thought, not sure if that would be enough to cause trauma though. I'll post a follow up tomorrow. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, that's very generous of you and it is very much appreciated.

Thanks
Geoff