Hello,

I'm writing from Italya and I need help with a rare feline disease. My cat was diagnosed angiomatosis and went recently under surgery to remove this small bunch of veins located between its nose and the eye. Of course it was impossibile to remove a great amount of flesh since the skin there is very thin. Now after almost 2 months there is a slight red vein coming up again in the same area.

The vet told me that this disease is extremely rare in cats and he is not able to tell me which kind of treatment we could offer the cat. He talked about chemiotherapy but says he needs to look for other similar cases elsewhere to be able to help us.

Of course if the bunch of veins starts growing again the cat may experience bleeding and this would eventually bring her to death.

Please help me!

Is there anybody who know anything about angiomatosis and the treatment to solve the problem?

Thank you for your kind help in advance!

Matilde - Rome - Italy

Matilde, I am so sorry for what your cat and you are going through. Your vet sounds very competent. I lost a cat with a rare form of cancer - fragile skin syndrome - but my vet did not know what it was and so it went untreated resulting to the loss of my Go. 

Sending you lots of   and prayers for your kitty's recovery.

Thank you for your kindness... unfortunately my vet does not know much about this disease, he says it's very rare, almost unexisting in cats, in fact I went on surfing the web looking for similar cases... and I just found ONE ... :-(

I need to find some vet who can give some hints to mine. My vet brought all medical papers to an international conference to get some help but so far he did not manage to find anyone who treated a similar case.

How unlucky my poor cat... :-( but I still hope she will make it... she's so beautiful, happy and strong...

Thanks and all my best to you!

Print out the information you found and give it to your vet.  Good luck and I hope your vet finds a way to help your poor cat.  Let us know what happens.

Hi there,

My cat was just diagnosed with the same thing. He is a 3 year old cat, who had a wound on his face (between his eye and nose). We took him to 3 vets, all of them had never seen anything like it before. He just had surgery 2 weeks ago to remove the wound. The vet said that it was angiomatosis, which he knew nothing about and said that he had to do some research about before he told us much more.

Our vet said that he doesn't know if it will come back. There is a good chance it will. He said that our cat was lucky it was on his face, because he could have had to have an amputation if it was on a leg. He told us that it was not life threatening (in this case anyways), but there would be a good chance that we would just have to keep Gigi locked in one room if it happened again....

I don't really know much else about the disease. I am just trying to do some research online and came across your post. 

I hope for both of our cats sake that they find a cure! 

 

Giginano, the original poster posted in June, and never came back to say what happened.  I just googled this "disease", and, like you, couldn't find too much about it, although I have definitely heard of Cat Scratch Fever in humans.  Well, I hope your Vets know what they are talking about when they say it's not life threatening for your little Gigi, but I wonder why if it returns, she'll need to be kept basically in isolation?  Did they say?  Is that for HER protection, for the other cats, or for the humans in the house?  Let's just hope it doesn't return!  Can you start giving her things to beef up her immune system to make her stronger against it coming back.  Is that something you can talk to your Vet about? 

for Gigi's complete recovery

Our vet told us that he believes that he cut out most of the veins that were disfigured, but said that since veins are all connected (and since he has never seen a case before) he didn't want to say for sure that it would never happen again. He said that there was a chance that it would grow back in the same spot, and we would probably have to keep Gigi in one room to contain the bleeding to one space. I'm really hoping that it doesn't happen again. I was cleaning furniture on a daily basis, and cleaning curtains and bedding daily. Poor Gigi had to wear a collar on and off for 6 months. I tried to keep it off of him when the sore wasn't bleeding. The first 6 months of him having the sore, we didn't have a collar on at all. When it got bad one day, he was bleeding all day from cleaning his wound all day long, we went right out and bought a collar. 

Our vet wants us to keep him posted since he has only heard of this disease, and never actually seen a case before. Hopefully there will only be good news!

Oh, I see.  Thanks for clarifying.  Well, I still say maybe if you can bump up her immune system, that might stave off any further "attacks".  Worth a shot

Hi folks,

thanks for your help and suggestions.

I'm just here to give you a feedback on my cat's situation.

One year ago we brought my cat to one of the most famous pet-oncologists in Europe and he told us that the only way we could save the cat was remove nose and eye, because this kind of cancer (angiomatosis is a cancer, very rare but still a cancer) grows deeply inside the body and keeps going if you don't remove everything in depth.

Of course there was no certainty that a new surgery would save her life 100%.

After one year the spot on the nose with irregular veins started growing again and bleeding from time to time. There is nothing else we can do but wait.

Ten days ago half of her face became swollen: we went back to the vet and he told us that the cancer is now growing extremely fast, in fact this swollen part came up in few days, we were astonished how fast it was.

The vet said we could have the cat go under surgery again, but this would grant her maximum 6 further months of life. Cancer is spreading throughout her face and maybe even somewhere else in her body.

We are trying to help her with cortisone pills to prevent further infection and her eyes from weeping.

I honestly believe she still has few weeks ahead, and as soon as we will see her suffer we will ask the vet to terminate her poor life.

Angiomatosis is so rare and impossible to anticipate how it progresses. It stayed idle for almost one year and now is exploding. My poor cat will soon leave us. :'(

I hope Giginano's cat had more luck.

Thank you all for your kindness.

LadyCat66, I am so sad about your situation. I had never heard of this, so you have done all of us a service by sharing your story. May your kitty have a peaceful end of life. You have definitely been a very good parent to her.

Matilde, I am so sorry to be reading this . 

Thank you for the update LadyCat66.

It has been 6 months since my cat, Gigi had his operation. Our vet couldn't tell us what to expect since it is a rare disease. I appreciate your update so I can prepare myself for what the future may hold. So far, I have not found any signs that the disease has come back on Gigi, but it is still pretty early.

I'm sorry that you are going through this again. :-(

Thank you for the update LadyCat66.

It has been 6 months since my cat, Gigi had his operation. Our vet couldn't tell us what to expect since it is a rare disease. I appreciate your update so I can prepare myself for what the future may hold. So far, I have not found any signs that the disease has come back on Gigi, but it is still pretty early.

I'm sorry that you are going through this again. :-(

Hi, I am sorry to hear about your cat.

Last year, my three year old cat was also diagnosed with Progressive Angiomatosis. He had a tumour on one of his back feet which looked like a blood blister. It burst and we took him to the vet.

They thought it was cancer at first, then they did the biopsy and realised it was benign and was angiomatosis. They said not much was known about the disease, but the best thing was to remove as much skin around the affected area as possible. This meant they wanted to remove his leg. However, he was referred to a specialist who wanted to try saving the leg. He took of two toes instead with a wide an incision without affecting his balance as possible.

My cat is fine now and there is no sign of the tumour returning, however it is highly likely it will come back, as the border of the area removed still showed positive for infected cells...meaning it can come back. The vet said at least he will have about 5 years before they would have to amputate a leg...

Best of luck - sorry I can't give you more information. I hope your cat is OK now

Electra7:

So sorry to hear about your kitty but thank you for sharing his story.  This is such a rare disease, I am sure others will want to know about it.  Vibes for your kitty to be well soon and not have a re-occurance!

I previously posted on this link as well. It has been a year and a half since my cat had surgery for angiomatosis on his face. So far, the scar is staying closed up. The vet told us that it would have been easier if the problem was on a limb, since they can amputate a limb if needed. They can't do too much if my cat, Gigi's angiomatosis comes back. Keep me posted in the future! I'm interested to see what happens since there doesn't really seem to be too many other cats with this disease. Best of luck with your kitty's health!

Reading this I feel very sad. My cat has had this for 2 years straight. They put him on pills that havent done anything since the start. They mentioned amputation as a alternitive. Now im wondering how far it could have spread. Its been swollen and bleeding for 2 years.

Kittykato, my vet told me that this disease is so rare that there isn't much data on it... This thread was basically the only information I could find on the net when my cat was diagnosed. The vet told me that he couldn't guarantee that surgery would help. Don't feel bad! My cat had the sore for months before I took him in. The first vet we took him to put him on pills, we brought him back, they put him on pills again, after about 3 months, we went to a cat specialist that diagnosed him with Angiomatosis, and did the surgery right away.

There is not enough data on the disease to know what will happen to your cat. My cat was young when his showed up. He was about 2 years old, and around 3 when he had surgery. It has been 2 years (in December) since his surgery, other then a scar on his face, you wouldn't know he had Angiomatosis. Change vets, go to someone who will do the surgery right away. If there is a cat specialist, go there. Pills don't do anything for Angiomatosis.

If you have a certified feline specialist in your area that is where I would take your kitty  http://www.abvp.com/diplomate  has a locator.  There is a certified feline specialist and a certified canine/feline specialist.  My first choice is a feline specialist.  You may not have one in your area, there are only about a hundred of them but I would check.  I live in Columbus OH which though a good sized urban area isn't like New York or Chicago and there are 3 in this area, one of which is semi-retired.  

Thank you so much for the info, im going to show it to my vet and see how he feels. I think he would do the amputation if we found it needed. Im glad your cats are doing better. Mines quite young as well. He will have to lose a leg and hope its not spread further.