Doing everything right…

…but still getting an imperfect result

Pet ownership is immensely rewarding but can be difficult at times. Most of us (yup, myself included) aren’t too keen on the constant upkeep for our exotic pets. I do generally recommend that if you want a reptile, measuring, logging and keeping track of details should be tasks you enjoy.

Regardless you can do everything right but still have a problem develop. I saw a young bearded dragon recently. Her owners notice a small bump on the top of her head, near her neck. They saw that is was increasing in size and brought her right in.

Based on her age and the size of the mass, it seemed most likely to be an abscess. However we couldn’t tell from the outside so the owners allowed me to get a surgical biopsy. At the time I removed as much of the mass as I could.

Sadly the biopsy came back with a diagnosis of spindle cell sarcoma – a tumor and she wasn’t even 2 years old!

Next Steps

Based on her age and the fact that the mass returned during the healing process, the owners wanted to give surgical removal a go. This type of tumor is hard to remove completely because it has little finger-like tendrils that extend out into the surrounding tissues. Nevertheless, determined to give xxx the best possible chance, we went back in to hopefully remove it all.

Here are some before, during and after surgical shots – she looks great!

  

Again we got bad news from the pathologist. Some of the sarcoma was present on the edge of the removed tissue. This means there was still sarcoma present in the muscle tissue on her back.

At this point we always have a decision – continue treatments or call it quits. Since this type of sarcoma is traditionally slow growing (in dogs and cats), she may have several years before it becomes a problem. If it grows up through the skin she may be fine for a very long time. However, if it continues to extend down through the muscles, it could cause problems with the trachea or esophagus or even some of the pretty big vessels in the neck.

 Treatment options

Discussions with specialists revealed the possibility of 2 different chemotherapy treatments. We could try radiation treatment – but that only gets through a few layers. If the remaining tumor is more than a few millimeters thick the treatment won’t get to the bottom. The other option was to wait until the tumor came back and try to inject the growth with chemotheraputic agents.

Both options work in other species and other tumors…but we don’t have enough data on either treatment in bearded dragons with spindle cell sarcomas to know which would work better. Or if either one will work at all!

At this stage, the owners are monitoring their bearded dragon. They want the best quality of life for her and may have to make some hard decisions when the growth returns. Until then, this is one lucky dragon to have found such a wonderful home.