28/01/2016
Case of the Month: Splenic Mass
What do you do? The pet you have grown to love has stopped eating and mopes around. So you take him (or her) to the vet to check things out and the minimum database is not overly helpful (blood work, urinalysis, and radiographs), so you elect to do an ultrasound as the next step and sure enough, it shows something. Below is a picture of the spleen and a splenic mass. In fact, this case had an almost identical clinical presentation and testing to your dog, but multiple aggressive appearing splenic masses were present. The value of the ultrasound is three-fold. First, it answers if there are any masses in the liver (splenic masses love to move into the liver). Fortunately, there was nothing obvious seen in the liver. Second and third, it indicated if there is any fluid or masses in the chest area (lung or heart). Again, nothing was seen in our case. So in this case, the vet elected to do some chest X rays to look for masses in the lungs (because ultrasound cannot see lungs very well), remove the spleen surgically, and get a visual examination of the liver at the time of surgery, and biopsy anything questionable.
The fact of the matter is that splenic masses are benign greater than 50% of the time (depending upon the breed), and its often worth pursuing. Your vet can help you and your pet, and ultrasound is often the difference maker, decision wise, (especially quality of life decisions like this one).