Critical Advice Needed - Naseopharynx Mass - Docs can't help!

[boogieandfatty]

Hello all, and thank you in advance.

My cat, Booger, is a healthy 5 year old domestic shorthair. Until last Saturday.
Out of the blue, she began struggling to breathe from her nose, and had to resort to mouth breathing. There was clearly something blocking her nasal airways as well as making her gag every time she swallowed. The onset was extremely rapid. After Sunday, she stopped eating or drinking.

*I may add, last month she had a series of sneezing with mucus that became bloody. It was instantly cleared with Clavamox and a steroid shot at her primary vet and diagnosed as a URI. Unsure if related*

Her x-ray, blood, and overall health checked out to be fine.
Yesterday, we brought her in for a CT scan as well as a scope / biopsy. Results of the CT scan are below with the description. Biopsy results will take a few more days, but the vet says it can be either a polyp, which can't be removed due to the area it's in, or cancer, which we do not have enough time to buy if we decide to go through with chemo/radiation, and that there is no short-term fix that she can think of to provide comfort until any therapies can take effect. She administered steroids and we are waiting to hear back to see if any swelling went down from that, as well as placed breathing tubes in her nostrils which apparently helped her breathe better, but said she can only leave those in for another day or two. Essentially, what I got from her was that she is out of options and has maybe a few days left, and that we should think about euthanasia.

This all sounds extremely pessimistic to me, especially given the rapid onset of her symptoms. I have forwarded the results to a new hospital's interventional radiology team with hopes of a stent to be able to be inserted to open up her airways.

Has anybody ever seen or went through anything similar? I had my hopes set for an easily removable polyp, but was told that whatever it is, whether a tumor or a polyp, it's in an area that the doctor was not able to reach. Is this 100% true? How can I save my baby?

Any responses are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[fionasmom]

Welcome to TCS, although I am sorry that you are facing this with your cat. The thread below is on this topic, or more specifically nasal cancer. Read through it, especially take note of Antonio65 on the second page who had a positive outcome.

Nasal Cancer

 

[Antonio65]

I'm really sorry to read what happened to your cat, it sounds quite similar to what my cat Lola (in profile pic) had.
She had a nasal carcinoma into her left nostril, about half an inch up the nostril.

The first signs of it were some sneezes in the same day, for several days in a row. The first attempt of treatment was with antibiotics, but when we saw that it wasn't working, we had to resort to a rhinoscopy which found a mass in this nostril. We hoped it was a polyp, but the biopsy said otherwise.

I was sent to an oncologist, who said that given the position, no surgery was possible, and we had two options. One was to let it go, my cat would have had only a very few months ahead, or try the radiotherapy, which would have given my cat a few more months, but it would have also been really expensive and very stressful for me and my Lola. I accepted to proceed with the radiation therapy.
The radiotherapy started two weeks later, after a total body CT scan to assess the actual size and position of the mass, which was about half of what your cat has.
The course of the radiotherapy was 4 weeks long. My cat came back home extremely worn out, exhausted, tired, weak. We were told that this therapy would have bought her about 6 months of life, and that the carcinoma would have come back in a few months.
But the truth is that the therapy destroyed the mass completely. All further CT scans done in the following months (one scan every 3 or 4 months for nearly 3 years) confirmed that the mass was gone for good.
The oncologists said it had never happened before, my Lola was the first case of a cat which won a similar cancer.
Lola lived nearly 6 more years after that, till March 2017, when an oral carcinoma, unrelated to the nasal one, took her away from me at the age of nearly 17.

I saw the images you attached, they look very much like the ones I would get from the many scans we did, but unfortunately I am not able to read them, I am not able to see anything in those image. But I can read the reports, and they say nearly the same things my reports did.

My best advice is to pursue the radiation therapy if the biopsy says it's a carcinoma. Given your cat's age, the chances of success are huge.
My cat was 11 years and 6 months old when she started the therapy, and was also suffering from a CKD.

All the best. Keep us posted.

 

[boogieandfatty]

I'm really sorry to read what happened to your cat, it sounds quite similar to what my cat Lola (in profile pic) had.
She had a nasal carcinoma into her left nostril, about half an inch up the nostril.

The first signs of it were some sneezes in the same day, for several days in a row. The first attempt of treatment was with antibiotics, but when we saw that it wasn't working, we had to resort to a rhinoscopy which found a mass in this nostril. We hoped it was a polyp, but the biopsy said otherwise.

I was sent to an oncologist, who said that given the position, no surgery was possible, and we had two options. One was to let it go, my cat would have had only a very few months ahead, or try the radiotherapy, which would have given my cat a few more months, but it would have also been really expensive and very stressful for me and my Lola. I accepted to proceed with the radiation therapy.
The radiotherapy started two weeks later, after a total body CT scan to assess the actual size and position of the mass, which was about half of what your cat has.
The course of the radiotherapy was 4 weeks long. My cat came back home extremely worn out, exhausted, tired, weak. We were told that this therapy would have bought her about 6 months of life, and that the carcinoma would have come back in a few months.
But the truth is that the therapy destroyed the mass completely. All further CT scans done in the following months (one scan every 3 or 4 months for nearly 3 years) confirmed that the mass was gone for good.
The oncologists said it had never happened before, my Lola was the first case of a cat which won a similar cancer.
Lola lived nearly 6 more years after that, till March 2017, when an oral carcinoma, unrelated to the nasal one, took her away from me at the age of nearly 17.

I saw the images you attached, they look very much like the ones I would get from the many scans we did, but unfortunately I am not able to read them, I am not able to see anything in those image. But I can read the reports, and they say nearly the same things my reports did.

My best advice is to pursue the radiation therapy if the biopsy says it's a carcinoma. Given your cat's age, the chances of success are huge.
My cat was 11 years and 6 months old when she started the therapy, and was also suffering from a CKD.

All the best. Keep us posted.

I saw your story, and it gives me a lot of hope, but again I think given the exact location that the mass is in and how it is obstructing her nasal passages and not letting her eat or sleep, I am grasping at straws to find a temporary fix that can alleviate the blockage until we can get the exact results so that we can have enough time to explore the options available for a long term fix like your Lola had.

 

[Antonio65]

Yes, the fact that in your cat the mass is obstructing the air passages and is giving your cat lots of distress and difficulties, time is essential and waiting for the biopsy report seems an eternity.
I hope your vets can find some palliative intervention to allow your cat to live her life with some quality until you can start any definitive treatment.
I hope it's just a polyp, though I don't know how they can remove it given its location.

 

[boogieandfatty]

Yes, the fact that in your cat the mass is obstructing the air passages and is giving your cat lots of distress and difficulties, time is essential and waiting for the biopsy report seems an eternity.
I hope your vets can find some palliative intervention to allow your cat to live her life with some quality until you can start any definitive treatment.
I hope it's just a polyp, though I don't know how they can remove it given its location.

An unfortunate update, my cat was diagnosed with nasal lymphoma. Carcinoma actually seemed like a better gamble as we would've been able to operate on it. They recommend radiation, and for now she was given a shot of chemotherapy to get her by week by week until we can see a specialist. But, now we begin our search for an oncologist with availabilities, and so far from today it seems like everyone is booked for the next 3-4 weeks at minimum. Hopefully the side effects won't be as bad. The only thing we didn't do was the full body CT/Ultrasound, but the doctor gave it a small probability that there is any spread yet, and I'm being wrung dry with these bills. Will be thinking back at your Lola for more hope throughout, we also aren't giving up.

 

[Antonio65]

In my case, the surgery wasn't an option whatever the mass was, due to its position.

A long wait isn't good in cases like ours, these masses can evolve into anything at any speed rate. Hopefully the chemotherapy can keep the beast under control.
I was very luck with Lola. She had the rhinoscopy at the end of October (Oct 25th, 2011), it's 11 years tomorrow, we had the result from the biopsy 9 days later with the diagnosis of indifferentiated carcinoma, the oncologist said it was the worst outcome possible.
We managed to get a visit with the oncologist at the local vet University the next week, November 9th, and an appointment with the radiation therapy facility the next Monday, November 14th.

This was the first trip to the facility, 235 miles away. We were there at 9 am, we left at 8 pm, were home at midnight.
They ran the total body CT scan, they wanted to see if there were any metastasis and also to locate the precise location of the nasal mass and its size. The CT scan was also used as a model to cast a bit for my cat's mouth, to keep her into a precise position during the radiation sessions. The radiation emission as to be aimed precisely to the mass position and its strength has to be calibrated on the depth and size of the mass.

The next Monday, November 21st, my cat was hospitalized at this facility. This was the second trip. I left my Lola there, she was treated among the first patients in the morning, so I waited for her to come out of this special room underground (due to the radiations, this room had to be underground, into a very thick shell of concrete). When she came out, I was able to greet her, kiss her goodbye, then I left and went home.

The radiation treatment was daily but Wednesdays and weekends.

I would visit with her every weekend. I would drive down there after work on Fridays, I would leave work early, in order to be there before 5 pm. On weekends they would give me my Lola back, I would stay at a hotel nearby with my cat with me for two days. On Sunday night I would take Lola back to the clinic and I would drive back home, till the next Friday.

Lola was dicharged on Friday, December 16th.
They were 16 sessions of radiation, that means 16 total nearly daily anesthesias. My cat was suffering from CKD since she was 6 yo, so the vets at the facility were a little concerned and would run a complete blood work every monday morning, but everything was fine, fortunately.

All in all, everything went quickly, from the diagnosis to the completion of the treatment it was just 6 weeks. I only blamed my previous vet for wasting three months with useless antibiotics to try to stop that sneezing which wasn't a cold.

Don't give up, you'll be glad you didn't.

 

[fionasmom]

I also hope that the chemo shot can keep things under control for the few weeks you have to wait for an appointment. Three or four weeks, given that you did allow the chemo, might be a reasonable window, so don't panic. Get an appointment, mention that you will take a cancellation if that works for you. Cats very often respond well to chemo and do not suffer the same side effects that humans do. Please keep us posted.