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Young Lab With a Hidden Intestinal Tumor: Could It Have Been Found Sooner?

by Stephanie

Reader Question
When we came home from a camping and fishing trip, our 5 and a half year old Black Lab became very ill. She started vomiting once a day, then up to 3 times a day. Our vet thought she'd picked up a bacterial infection and gave her an antibiotic and an acid-reducing medicine. After a week she was no better, so we tried a different antibiotic. She ate only a little wet food and drank little water, then stopped eating altogether. Her white blood cell count was more than double the top of the normal range. By then she was extremely lethargic, hadn't had a bowel movement in several days, and wouldn't walk far. The vet suspected salmon poisoning, since we'd been catching fish on the trip, and treated her with fluids, a steroid, anti-nausea medicine and the antibiotic for salmon poisoning. She improved a little but still wouldn't eat, and she vomited again. The vet then opened her abdomen and found a cancerous tumor in her intestine that had spread to her lymph nodes. He recommended not waking her up, because the damage was so extensive. I don't know the name of the cancer. I blame no one. I just need to know if there was any way we could have diagnosed it sooner and treated it to save her.


Answer from Our Team

We're so sorry. There was nothing you or your vet did wrong. Intestinal tumors are hard to diagnose early. Their first signs, such as vomiting and a poor appetite, look just like the much more common stomach upsets and infections, and blood tests can't show them. Salmon poisoning was a very reasonable worry after a fishing trip. It causes vomiting, poor appetite and weakness, usually starts within a week or so of eating raw fish, and can be fatal without treatment, so treating it first made sense.

Most intestinal tumors occur in dogs over 6, but younger dogs can be affected. Ultrasound finds intestinal masses better than X-rays, but even a normal scan doesn't rule out some tumors, and a definite diagnosis often needs a biopsy taken during surgery, which is what your vet did. When a tumor has caused this much illness by the time it is found, the outlook is often poor, even with surgery. Letting her go peacefully during surgery was a kind decision.

If you'd like to know what type of cancer it was, your vet may have a pathology report from the surgery. Common types are adenocarcinoma, lymphoma and smooth-muscle tumors.

See intestinal cancer in dogs.

This is general information, not a diagnosis. Please follow your own vet's advice.

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