My pet needs surgery for a mass. How can my vet get expert advice?

You can request a consult online with one of our experts, but please keep in mind we cannot definitively diagnose Sheila without seeing her in person. Your other option is to take her into a different vet in your town. Best of luck.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! That's the great thing about this site is that it lets you have access to veterinary advice even if there aren't any around. Thank you! Don't hesitate to ask any question you have or use the consultation service for a more in depth analysis of any issue you are concerned about!

As far as my knowledge goes there is no board certified (Diploma holder) specialist in Internal Medicine, but only one in Emergency and Critical care. We are all competent indeed and many of us have (not official though) many fields and years of expertise. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

There is no way for me (or any other vet) to tell if the mass is cancerous or not just by looking at it. You will need to have your vet either surgically remove it and send it to a diagnostic laboratory so they can examine it under a microscope. Only then can you have a diagnosis of cancerous or not. There is a way to get a preliminary idea without surgery and that is with a fine needle aspirate. Your vet will put a needle directly into the mass (anesthesia is not required) and pull out some cells, put those cells on a microscope slide and then analyze them. This may give you a cursory idea of what type of mass it is. So, one of those things will need to be done before you can get an answer. Hope this helps.

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! It depends on the Vet's experience with reading cytology. Most Vets send out their cytology samples to a specialist who is trained to read them. Mast cell tumors have a classic look and tend to be one of the easier tumors to diagnose. You could ask your Vet to send the slides out since that only takes 1-2 days to get them back but sometimes aspirates do not get you an answer. I know you have surgery set up and a biopsy planned. That is the best thing for Precious, to get the mass off and know what it is. It has a high chance of being benign. It is a good thing it hasn't grown much. I wish you the best!

I'm sorry this is happening. You can post here and ask your questions. We will help as best we can. Customer service will get back to you in due course to likely refund your money from the failed consult.

I’m sorry to hear about Tsunami’s diagnosis. MCTs are quite common in dogs, and unfortunately due to the cell distribution around the primary tumor, incomplete margins are common. If you want to be confident you’re pursuing the best options for the best prognosis, I recommend asking your vet for an oncologist referral. A veterinary oncologist will be the best specialist to be able to present all the options and their given pros & cons, and they have access to chemo medications that most primary vets don’t carry. If you choose not to pursue referral, then I recommend reaching out to your vet again to discuss the next step. If this were my case, I would probably recommend sampling Tsunami’s lymph nodes with a needle to look for evidence of regional metastasis, and based on those findings discuss if a second surgery is appropriate. Hope this helps!