Why did my dog's neck lump biopsy show no results? Should I remove it?

Hi and thanks for posting! If it is a small mass, taking a biopsy may be hard to do. They do need a fairly good and complete piece of tissue to properly evaluate it. Sometimes if small masses are concerning from appearance to your veterinarian, they may recommend just removing it completely and sending off the tissue to a pathologist for evaluation. I hope this helps!

Needle aspiration of lipomas typically yields identifiable fat so i agree with your family vet that it is concerning to not have any material recovered with the needle aspirate. We always start with needle aspiration as it is non invasive with quick results but some masses are harder to diagnose with this test. This typically occurs if the mass is firmer in nature. Going to see a specialist can be helpful as we can sometimes use other techniques such as ultrasound to obtain samples with needle aspiration to try to avoid biopsy. But ultimately biopsy may be necessary for some masses. I hope this helps and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Possibilities include mast cell tumor, soft tissue sarcoma, plasmacytoma, carcinoma, something of a benign origin, among many others. It should be something similar or the same as the FNA. Ultimately, the biopsy is what actually provides the definitive diagnosis. Feel free to contact us back once the results are available and we can try to guide you going forward the best we can. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it is something benign. Good luck and have a great day!

The biopsy results are inconclusive, as they were unable to definitively diagnose what the mass is. This is often the case with bleeding masses in the abdomen - biopsies are often non-diagnostic, due to the fact that there is so much associated hemorrhage, which it looks like is basically all they were able to tell on the biopsy. It's likely that the only way an accurate diagnosis will be achieved is by doing an exploratory surgery of the abdomen. At that time, the mass can be visualized and completely removed (also typically the spleen as well). I recommend x-rays of the chest before this is attempted, as this is the most common site of metastasis. If there is disease in the lungs the prognosis is significantly worse, and this would likely factor into your decision to do the surgery or not.

I would recommend removal or at least a biopsy of the lymphnodes (where a little piece of the lymph node is removed). This can be done under geeneral anesthesia, which nowadays is very safe or, if your dog is very quiet, may be done under sedation and a local anesthesia (I would prefer the general anesthesia though). This could indeed be lymphoma or it could be reactive lymph nodes, swelling because they are filtering out bacteria and other material that the body does not deem healthy. Should it be lymphoma and you do not want chemotherapy , your dog can indeed be made comfortable with steroids. Rather than hoping and guessing whether it is lymphoma or not, the biopsy, whether done by taking the whole lymphnode or just part of it, will give you a diagnosis and then you can deal with the disease.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. I would recommend having this surgically removed and then send out the actual tissue sample for a definitive diagnosis. The test to have the slide interpreted and also to have the tissue sample interpreted are the exact same cost typically or very close in price, which is typically over $300. Why spend that much to have a slide interpreted when you can just have it removed and get a more definitive answer with an actual tissue sample being interpreted? The needle aspirate test is great but unfortunately it does not provide one with a definitive diagnosis. Since this is near a mammary gland I would want to know for sure what this is. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

I would recommend having an biopsy done on the lump on Nanook. There are types malignant cancers that can't be diagnosed with a fine needle aspirate, and can only be diagnosed with a biopsy. It's always important to have any suspicious lumps diagnosed, so in case it is a malignant cancer, it can be treated right away. It does happen that dogs will not show any signs of being sick from cancer until after the cancer has spread or a tumor has ruptured. I think having it biopsied is a good idea.