I have an 8 1/2 year old Airedale Terrier bitch who was spayed in 2013. She has presented with multiple primary cancers -- (1) a low-grade hemangiocytoma (excised 8/14; followed by 20 days radiation), (2) a low-grade spindle cell skin sarcoma (excised 11/14), (3) a liver lesion which has turned out to be benign (excised 5/15) and (4) an intermediate grade mammary adenocarcinoma (excised 5/15, margins incomplete). No lymph node or lung involvement to date.
Can you please discuss multiple primary cancers and whether there may be any systemic treatment, and whether there have been any studies to which you can refer audience members? Thank you very much.
These sound very much like bad-luck tumors. Most dogs are at risk for any one of these tumors. It is bad luck to get so many. However, the liver mass was benign and many of the others were low grade. Most heritable mutations that cause cancer result in more aggressive malignancies than you are describing. There is very little published that would explain this phenomenon. We certainly see dogs who appear to be “tumor factories,” but I’m not sure your sweet dog meets those criteria, yet! Hope the lumps stop or at least remain low-grade.
