We love our pets, sometimes just as much as we love our kids. However, there are times when they would fall ill and we do not know the reason since they couldn’t say or let you know how they are feeling. This makes it hard for us to determine the main cause of their illness. However, there are those obvious diseases, like cat mammary cancer, that can be detected if you know your cat’s body all too well. Let us discover what cat mammary cancer is all about, from its cause, symptoms, prognosis, and treatment.
Cat mammary cancer: The cause
Just like any type of cancer in humans, cat mammary cancer has no definite cause that is fully investigated and proven. However, there are studies that mentioned hormonal changes can trigger the development of tumors or masses. When the body increases the production of female hormones estrogen and progesterone, the chances of developing breast masses and tumors also increase. Because cats are known to lick their bodies, infection of the tumor as it grows outward and exposed to the skin happens and develops from a precancerous tumor to a carcinoma.
Symptoms of feline breast cancer
Like human breast cancer, the most significant clinical sign that a cat has breast cancer is the palpable mass it has on its abdomen. It may differ in number, size, and shape, but the palpability may be distinctly firm. There are, as mentioned earlier, masses that tend to come out of the skin, and because cats tend to clean their body by licking it, you can also observe that they have developed ulcerations and sores around their infected breasts with a foul odor. They may likewise feel weak, has a poor appetite, lose weight, and do not want to be touched or caressed.
How to diagnose cat mammary cancer
Aspiration or removal of the tumor from the cat’s breast is needed to do a biopsy and histopathology in order to confirm if it is indeed cancer and what stage it can be. It can also detect if cancer has the characteristic to spread to other parts of the body. Additional lab works need to be provided including abdominal ultrasound, an x-ray of the abdomen and chest, blood count, and urinalysis.
Feline breast cancer: Good or poor prognosis
The way a cat’s breast cancer prognosis is determined is through the size of the tumor. If the tumor reaches more than 2 cm, the prognosis, more often than not, is poor. Also, if the histopathology and other laboratory findings show that the tumor already invaded your pet’s bloodstream, the chances of it getting treated are also poor, since the systemic spread of cancer may be highly likely.
Cat mammary cancer treatment
If the cat’s cancer has a poor prognosis, aggressive treatment may only be put to waste. This will make your pet feel more uncomfortable and sickly instead of helping it fight the disease. What vets recommend is to undergo a detailed investigation of the cancer. If it is the type that is localized or benign, the best solution is surgical removal of the tumor and its surrounding structures. This will ensure that cancer will not spread to other neighboring body parts and organs. As feline breast cancer has a high metastatic rate, chemotherapy can follow the surgery. However, if the cancer is already on its advanced level, palliative care may be recommended to help make the cat feel comfortable for the remainder of its life.
