Oncology- tumor biopsy

Today I got to biopsy a big subcutaneous tumor. It's probably the most hands-on I've been allowed to be in vet school!

"A" is a 12 year old labrador with a golf ball sized mass over her shoulder that seems to be causing her to limp.

We were highly suspicious that it would be a primary bone tumor called osteosarcoma. But, we took radiographs and were delighted to find out that the tumor was not affecting the bone. (Osteosarcoma generally carries a very poor prognosis.)

This leaves us with several other potential causes.

We did a fine needle aspirate of the mass and came away with a lot of blood and some maybe soft tissue tumor cells. Essentially, the fine needle aspirate wasn't diagnostic.

So, today we did a biopsy of the tumor.

We put A under general anesthesia. We then clipped the hair over the mass and did a sterile preparation. Then, Dr. Daly let me do the wedge biopsy. I took a big slice out of the tumor and Dr. Daly commented that I was not a wimpy biopsy-er. After that, the tumor bled and bled and bled. We stopped the bleeding primarily through cautery. Then, I even got to place the sutures!

The biopsy results are still pending.
But, overall a very exciting time!