My friend's dog has a lump

[wolfsoul]

My friend's American cocker spaniel has a lump on her chest. It is hard and attached. My first thought was a mamary tumor. However her adult friend told her it was just infected gland, so she doesn't seem very worried. The dog has had the lump for about a year. My other thought was it could be a fat deposit since her dog is overweight, but wouldn't it be squishy?

I always thought that dogs had the same glands as people, but I suppose I was mistaken, as I read on Amy's thread that Reggie's lump may be an infected gland. Does anyone know what kind of gland would be on a dog's chest? It's not directly on her chest...More like on her stomach.

I was trying to terrify her into going to the vet, but now that it's "just an infected gland" (or so her friend says) she's not really in a hurry. She is trying to raise some money incase she has to get it removed though...

[dragondawg]

If your puppy has a lump it needs to be needle aspirated, with the sample sent off to a Pathology lab. Sometimes a Vet can see fatty globules on the slide, and make a diagnosis of a fatty tumor. But outside of that it should be read by a Pathology lab. What a Vet can not do is just feel or look at a lump and make an accurate determination as to what it might be.

Since the growth has been present for a year it is most likely to be a cyst, or a non-malignant Fibrosarcoma. Although one can not eliminate a very slow growing Hemangiopericytoma. Again your friend needs a sample sent off to a Pathology lab.

[wolfsoul]

Thanks for your reply, I'll tell her.

Are you sure it could be a cyst? I'm sure a cyst would have opened in less than a year. I dealt with a cyst when my rat got one. His lasted about a month.

[dragondawg]

If the skin can keep up in growth rate, it may never open. Others as you have observed will pop early on.

My previous dog started with lipomas at 5 yrs, then came a couple of small cysts at 8 yrs that lasted to the end of her life, a Hemangiopericytoma, and a couple of months after that Lymphoma at age 10 yrs. Also a non-malignant fibroma occured during the last year of her life.

The Hemangiopericytoma was the hardest to detect, as it had the consistency expected for a cyst, but was not very large. The detection method was needle aspirate.