Found Out Your Dog Has A Fibrosarcoma? What You Should Know

When you are a dog owner, your top priority is always to keep them as safe and healthy as possible. As such, when they have a strange lump or growth on their body, you might find yourself quite worried about their health and well-being.

If you took them to the veterinarian and found out that your dog has what is known as a fibrosarcoma, you might be understandably worried and confused. Get to know more about what a fibrosarcoma is and what can be done about it, so you can be sure you are doing everything you can for your beloved dog going forward.

A Fibrosarcoma Is Malignant

The first thing you will likely wonder when you hear the term fibrosarcoma is whether or not your dog has cancer. Unfortunately, a fibrosarcoma is considered to be a malignant (cancerous) tumor.

Fibrosarcomas Do Not Grow Rapidly

Although a fibrosarcoma is a form of cancer, there is some good news about the situation. Fibrosarcomas are not rapidly developing tumors and are not a form of cancer that grows or spreads quickly.

This can be good news because it means that you have time to consider treatment options and that you do not have to worry too much about the cancer spreading throughout the body. Most of the time, the slow-growth means that the tumors are found and dealt with in the early stages.

Fibrosarcomas Rarely Metastasize

Another piece of good news about fibrosarcoma tumors is that they rarely metastasize. When cancer metastasizes, it means that the cancer moves beyond the margins of the original tumor. An example of this would be lung cancer that spreads beyond the lungs and infects the esophagus or the heart.

Fibrosarcomas are not a swiftly metastasizing cancer. And beyond that, even if a fibrosarcoma tumor has grown quite extensive and large, it is not likely that it will have spread into other systems of the body.

Surgery Is Usually the Primary Course of Action

Fibrosarcoma tumors are a rare form of cancer that does not necessarily respond to conventional cancer treatment options. Chemotherapy is ineffective in treating fibrosarcomas as the medications cannot penetrate far enough into the tumor to make any difference in its growth.

Radiation therapy, on the other hand, can be effective at shrinking the tumor and preventing growth but will likely not completely eradicate the tumor on its own. As such, the best course of action against a fibrosarcoma is usually surgery.

The surgery performed to remove a fibrosarcoma will depend on the size and location of the tumor. Sometimes, the doctor can remove the entire tumor while other times only a partial removal is possible.

However, the goal of surgery is to remove as much of the tumor as possible. If you remove the entire tumor from the body, the veterinarian will try to take wide margins around the tumor. The margins are the edges of the tissue that is removed from the body. The wider the margins around the tumor, the more likely that all of the cancer is removed.

Such Tumors Often Recur

Finally, while all of the tumor may be excised in surgery even with clean margins, there is a good chance that a fibrosarcoma will recur. The recurrence of such tumors usually occurs in the same area as the original tumor but can also occur elsewhere in the body.

Part of the aftercare process for a fibrosarcoma, therefore, will be to keep an eye out for any additional growths near the surface of the skin. If those growths occur, your dog should go to the veterinarian as soon as possible to ensure they are dealt with properly.

Now that you know more about fibrosarcomas and your dog, you can be sure that you are doing everything you can to take care of your dog going forward.