The Energon Pub

I just took my cat, Newton, to the vet today. She has a lump on her right shoulder, which I had found about 3 weeks ago. At first I didn't think much of it, because it was only the size of a pimple or a mosquito bite. Within a week or so, it had swelled to the size of a large cyst.

The vet tells me it is most likely a Sarcoma, which is a cancer that can be caused by vaccinations. He recommends surgery, and the quote was in the $850 range, without any guarantees, due to the aggressive nature of the cancer itself.

Have any other cat owners experienced this? After googling and wiki-ing, I still can't find a reletively unambiguous definition, and I can't seem to find anything of an experiential nature.

I honestly thought that the bump may have been related to a piece of chipped bone that my cat's old vet noticed while checking an X-ray film. This was about 7 yrs ago, he didn't want to do anything about it because it didn't seem to be causing any problems. Is it possible that a stray piece of bone could cause this inflammation? If so, why now after all these years?

Any insight is appreciated.

My cat Butterscoth died of cancer almost 2 years ago. I asked the vet about the cancer and she assumed it was to do
his age, he was 17 years old at the time of his death, feline cancer is like human cancer any number of reasons can
cause it.

Sarcoma is an ambiguous term;it's just a term for defining the type of tissue the cancer is of, Carcinomas, cancers that affect the epithelial cells of orgarn (skin cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer,), sarcomas, are cancers of muscle, bone or blood vessels(connective tissues, etc), and lymphomas are cancers of cells which give rise to blood cells

sorry i can't be much help, but without a biopsy, or equivalent tests, you can't really tell much about the nature of the cancer past what type of tissue its in.

How old is your cat?

Spoon wrote:How old is your cat?

She's just turning 13 this June. I've had her since I was 19. She's still very healthy...she's energetic, has an appetite, and is still very agile. Maybe just a bit lazier, but that is the only change I've noticed over the past couple of yrs.

As Tammuz had said before me, probably one of the best ways to tell would be to have a biopsy done. As the vet said it could be from the vaccines, what is a possible cause in the vaccine might be that vaccines sometimes use a killed virus to induce an immune response. The problem with this is that I think the killed virus requires a sort of preservative so it doesn't deteriorate and become useless. So it might be the preservative part the might be causing the cancer. I don't think this happens much or at all with a modified live virus, just the dead ones with the preservative. Vets are now trying to prevent this cancer by using live virus or not vaccinating all in one area. Also I think they only found out about a lot of this stuff fairly recently.

My cat Murphy had two surgeries to remove a cancerous growth on his hind leg and finally had to be put down because it had spread too far to be worked on again (we did look into amputating his leg, but the cancer had spread too deep into the hip by that point). The apparent cause, according to the vet, was the vaccination for feline leukemia, though he pointed out that it was a very rare occurance. We did stop vaccinating the other cats for feline leukemia and kept them indoors after that. My current pet, Shadow, isn't vaccinated for it either, but she's an indoor cat and doesn't live with any other cat.

Do you know if the vet mentioned if it was a vaccination for feline leukemia that may have been the cause? I personally have never heard of distemper and rabies vaccinations causing cancer (in my area, the latter's required by law, so it's not really an option).

PorQPine wrote:

Spoon wrote:How old is your cat?

She's just turning 13 this June. I've had her since I was 19. She's still very healthy...she's energetic, has an appetite, and is still very agile. Maybe just a bit lazier, but that is the only change I've noticed over the past couple of yrs.

Okay this might sound a bit cruel but
You might have to consider whenever you really want to spend 800+ bucks on an operation for your cat with the chance she might not survive anyway. Or might need an other operation later on.
It might be best to enjoy the time you got left with her and put her down when the cancer really starts to have an effect on her. Saving the expenses and the pain you put your cat through by putting her through operations.

Thunderscream wrote:Do you know if the vet mentioned if it was a vaccination for feline leukemia that may have been the cause?

I had an awesome big furry main coon cat some time ago that died of feline leukemia while he was only 6 years old. That really sucked, I still miss that cat.

Spoon wrote:

PorQPine wrote:

Spoon wrote:How old is your cat?

She's just turning 13 this June. I've had her since I was 19. She's still very healthy...she's energetic, has an appetite, and is still very agile. Maybe just a bit lazier, but that is the only change I've noticed over the past couple of yrs.

Okay this might sound a bit cruel but
You might have to consider whenever you really want to spend 800+ bucks on an operation for your cat with the chance she might not survive anyway. Or might need an other operation later on.
It might be best to enjoy the time you got left with her and put her down when the cancer really starts to have an effect on her. Saving the expenses and the pain you put your cat through by putting her through operations.

I know you're not trying to be cruel...believe me, I have thought about it. I do worry about putting her through the pain of multiple surgeries, and of course, spending almost a grand everytime. More than anything I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with this, because this is the first that I have heard of it.

Thanks for the input everyone. Newton appreciates it, too.

PorQPine wrote:

Spoon wrote:

PorQPine wrote:

Spoon wrote:How old is your cat?

She's just turning 13 this June. I've had her since I was 19. She's still very healthy...she's energetic, has an appetite, and is still very agile. Maybe just a bit lazier, but that is the only change I've noticed over the past couple of yrs.

Okay this might sound a bit cruel but
You might have to consider whenever you really want to spend 800+ bucks on an operation for your cat with the chance she might not survive anyway. Or might need an other operation later on.
It might be best to enjoy the time you got left with her and put her down when the cancer really starts to have an effect on her. Saving the expenses and the pain you put your cat through by putting her through operations.

I know you're not trying to be cruel...believe me, I have thought about it. I do worry about putting her through the pain of multiple surgeries, and of course, spending almost a grand everytime. More than anything I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with this, because this is the first that I have heard of it.

Thanks for the input everyone. Newton appreciates it, too.

I hope everything goes well for you and Newton.

Zombie Starscream wrote:As Tammuz had said before me, probably one of the best ways to tell would be to have a biopsy done. As the vet said it could be from the vaccines, what is a possible cause in the vaccine might be that vaccines sometimes use a killed virus to induce an immune response. The problem with this is that I think the killed virus requires a sort of preservative so it doesn't deteriorate and become useless. So it might be the preservative part the might be causing the cancer. I don't think this happens much or at all with a modified live virus, just the dead ones with the preservative. Vets are now trying to prevent this cancer by using live virus or not vaccinating all in one area. Also I think they only found out about a lot of this stuff fairly recently.

i doubt a biopsy would be able to show quite that much detail.

i've never heard of this preservative problem before, mainly becuase i've nerver heard of this method of vaccine production, the main link between vaccination and cancer would probably be due to attentuated Viri; where a genetically modified virus is used, it's constructed so that it works exactly the same a normal virus, except it's genes that make you ill are non-functional.

you've got to know a little about cell function to see why thes viri can cuase cancer; first off every single cell in your body wants to kill itself(a process called apoptosis), but your body generally keeps them alive by creating chemical factor that blocks the activation of these suicide genes.

now viruses work by getting their DNA int the cell and getting the cell to follow those instructions rather than the instructions that are the cells own DNA, some viruses go as far as intergrating their own DNA into the Cells DNA

now if the Viral DNA intergrates itself into the middle of one of these suicide genes that cell can no longer commit suicide and just goes on dividing and we get a cancer.

however you've also got to understand that it's entirely natual for these suicide genes to mutate anyway(cancer's the down side of evolution), and there are also hundreds of other reasons for a cat's suicide genes to to mutate off, it could even be becuase he caught another virus sometime in his life.

Tammuz wrote:

Zombie Starscream wrote:As Tammuz had said before me, probably one of the best ways to tell would be to have a biopsy done. As the vet said it could be from the vaccines, what is a possible cause in the vaccine might be that vaccines sometimes use a killed virus to induce an immune response. The problem with this is that I think the killed virus requires a sort of preservative so it doesn't deteriorate and become useless. So it might be the preservative part the might be causing the cancer. I don't think this happens much or at all with a modified live virus, just the dead ones with the preservative. Vets are now trying to prevent this cancer by using live virus or not vaccinating all in one area. Also I think they only found out about a lot of this stuff fairly recently.

i doubt a biopsy would be able to show quite that much detail.

i've never heard of this preservative problem before, mainly becuase i've nerver heard of this method of vaccine production, the main link between vaccination and cancer would probably be due to attentuated Viri; where a genetically modified virus is used, it's constructed so that it works exactly the same a normal virus, except it's genes that make you ill are non-functional.

you've got to know a little about cell function to see why thes viri can cuase cancer; first off every single cell in your body wants to kill itself(a process called apoptosis), but your body generally keeps them alive by creating chemical factor that blocks the activation of these suicide genes.

now viruses work by getting their DNA int the cell and getting the cell to follow those instructions rather than the instructions that are the cells own DNA, some viruses go as far as intergrating their own DNA into the Cells DNA

now if the Viral DNA intergrates itself into the middle of one of these suicide genes that cell can no longer commit suicide and just goes on dividing and we get a cancer.

however you've also got to understand that it's entirely natual for these suicide genes to mutate anyway(cancer's the down side of evolution), and there are also hundreds of other reasons for a cat's suicide genes to to mutate off, it could even be becuase he caught another virus sometime in his life.

Oh I do know this stuff, but was just stating what I've read from another source. Chemicals have the capability to alter a cell's DNA, also radiation and free radicals too. Sometimes tranposons(sp?) will swap genes with a cell, but I'm not sure if it might be anough to cause cancer, I don't know, it might be.

I love animals, and they seem to care for me as well. Therefore I feelsorry for you and your cat. I am a dog person. Yeah the best thing to do is to have a biopsy done.

Spoon wrote:Okay this might sound a bit cruel but
You might have to consider whenever you really want to spend 800+ bucks on an operation for your cat with the chance she might not survive anyway. Or might need an other operation later on.
It might be best to enjoy the time you got left with her and put her down when the cancer really starts to have an effect on her. Saving the expenses and the pain you put your cat through by putting her through operations.

Advice like this does sound cruel but it would be the course I would take and I love my own cat, Cheetah. I have a pretty good paying job but I couldn't afford to put out that much money time after time. And honestly, if my own health took a turn like this I would rather not have the medical bills that, in the end, would only get inherited by family.

I would suggest checking with another vet before you decide anything definate. $850 for such a simple operation sounds more than a little steap. Esspecialy when you consider that all the surgery one of our cats required (including having to have one of his legs rebuilt as it was compleatly shattered) after getting hit by a shotgun blast was only about half that much.

Jar Axel wrote:I would suggest checking with another vet before you decide anything definate. $850 for such a simple operation sounds more than a little steap. Esspecialy when you consider that all the surgery one of our cats required (including having to have one of his legs rebuilt as it was compleatly shattered) after getting hit by a shotgun blast was only about half that much.

One of the vets in our area cost almost twice as much as does a differant vet, simply because they are in a more affluent area, and the local clients there can afford the prices. So I would say to try to get the opinions of several vets and see what each of them would charge for the surgery. Sometimes the vet is high quality and will charge prices accordingly, but it also can depend on where they are located too.