I know it's tough to hear but mast cell tumor is not always as bad as it sounds. It's the most common skin cancer of dogs. Seems like every one I take off ends up being a grade II/III. Which means you don't know for sure how it will respond.

You need to know if there were clean margins - that means whether your vet got it all or not. If there's leftover cancer cells in the skin (i.e. dirty margins) then it means there could be a greater chance of it coming back.

You can also get chest x-rays and an abdominal ultrasound to see if there's obvious metastasis internally - that would really change the prognosis. If it's just in the skin then some cases the surgery alone can be curative. Other cases you might need to go see an oncologist. Chemotherapy is pretty effective and is nothing like the side effects you always see in people - usually you can't even tell the dog's had it.

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Posted by Mr. Hangover

New Orleans

Member since Sep 2003

34521 posts

Posted on 4/24/19 at 8:43 pm to AubieALUMdvm

Thank you for your input aubie. I appreciate it

One of the things I remember the vet telling me is that she’d like to go back in and remove the rest of the mass in his leg once he’s done healing. It’s been over a week since his surgery, and he appears to be healing well on the surface. The doc was surprised when I told her that his stitches didn’t open back up after we got home. She said she got most of the mass, but she couldn’t get ALL of it. Not sure exactly what that means as far as a prognosis to be honest

I will ask about getting xray’s and ultrasounds the next time I speak with the doctor

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