Questions about Mammary Hyperplasia

[Aafia Ijaz]

Feline Mammary Hyperplasia.

If you are sure it is hyperplasia, that is usually benign, but as the article states mammary gland cancer can be hard to differentiate without a biopsy. Too late to get histopathology report?

But I've also read this long article about hyperplasia and it says that even a biopsy can't differentiate between mammary hyperplasia and mammary tumor.
And yes too late for histopathology

 

[fionasmom]

What did your vet tell you when he removed or evaluated the mass? What was his prognosis for your cat. It seems as if this is all you might have to go on.

 

[posiepurrs]

But cats with mammary hyperplasia also have swellings that ulcerate and bleed this is why sometimes mammary hyperplasia and tumors ar hard to distinguish even on a biopsy. Can you tell me if any of your cats with mammary hyperplasia had lumps that were ulcerating and bleeding?

Actually our first case was a young female pregnant with her first litter. She did ulcerate but no oozing ( at least from what I recall since it was about 12 years ago.). My vet first diagnosed mastitis ( same symptoms) but when I told him she was pregnant and not nursing he diagnosed mammary hyperplasia. Since it was a deliberate breeding and I had no intention of spaying her( I was a breeder at the time), he put her on antibiotics to avoid necrosis. The vet did not want to try to spay her anyway since she was so swollen. He said the only way he would spay her, which is the normal treatment, is if the ulcers became necrotic. She had a beautiful healthy litter of 3 and had no trouble nursing. The swelling went down in time as hormones normalized and she never had another problem. The neutered male who had it just had lumps, no ulcers. I took the original poster to mean the discharge was from the nipple, not the ulceration.

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

He told me a histopathology was not needed and that the tumor was localized.

 

[fionasmom]

That sounds like good news. Clean margins can mean a lot in cancer, or suspected cancer, surgery.

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

How long did it take for the swelling to entirely go down if you remember? Did it take a several months?
Also, is it true that sometimes a surgical procedure becomes necessary to treat mammary hyperplasia?

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

That sounds like good news. Clean margins can mean a lot in cancer, or suspected cancer, surgery.

So basically my cat got spayed in late September when she was 9 months old. Got a little bit of infection because one of the stitches was pulled out. She recovered in a week totally healed after she was given a few days of antibiotics. On November 4th (almost a month after her spay), i witnessed pus coming out from the same location. Took her to the vet and he started an antibiotic treatment along with drainage of pus through pressure. It almost healed but the pus started coming out again. Vet said he's afraid there might be a foreign particle inside and that they'd have to open it up. On November 19th, they opened it up and said there were litter particles inside which got into a few of her muscles so we had to clean it all up and remove the infected muscles too.
did her second surgery while the skin was infected (pus coming out of it) which they weren't supposed to do. Anyway, they said the muscles and tissues were inflammed and infected and that it had a different color too. They used the term "fibrosis". They kept her for exactly 3 weeks with a cone on but didn't see her late night and told me that she had pulled out her stitches so we stitched it again the next morning. They told me that she pulled out the stitches AGAIN the next day but they said this time they wouldn't stitch it they'd go with open healing. The site was already too big for open healing because they had made a big incision. They said she managed to pull the stitches with the cone on. Anyway, at that time they said it would be very time taking and there was fluid coming out of the wound and they'd clean it thrice a day they said it was normal because it was healing and muscles were growing and attaching. After 3 weeks we brought her home and saw hard lumps under the skin of the abdomen that had the surgery. PS I noticed the lumps started developing while the hole was getting smaller and trying to heal. Vet asked us to bring her everyday for cleaning and draining fluid through pressure. 3rd day there was no fluid coming which indicated healing. 4th day the fluid started coming out from left side of the wound not from where there was a hole because of the incision. The fluid was mixed with blood an exudate i suppose. When he gave pressure the fluid also started coming from bottom right part from between the skin (there was no passage for the fluid to come out of that skin but it still punctured a bit of skin with a very tiny whole). Fluid was basically coming out from different openings by puncturing the skin. The vet told me after the surgery he felt two other lumps exactly in the left and right sides closer to the back legs probably in the mammary gland they were movable and hard i suppose that's what you call the groin area (still not sure if a bit of swelling was present before her spay because i never checked). The vet said it's not right for fluid to leak from sides again and again once it stopped while the skin was healing. Took her to another vet who kept her on 3 days of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory. Told me there was no fluid coming now however, the lumps on the abdomen didn't decrease in size but when she returned after 5 days i noticed the ones on mammary glands (the sides) kind of increased and were NOt anymore MOVABLE, they seem attached to the skin and the mass wasn't just seen in the opposite mammary glands of the groin, but also where the incision was made (the abdomen where spay was previously done and the second surgery Not to mention, after a week it also started bleeding/ulcerating. Then took her to another vet who got her operated, told me the previous vet didn't make the incision the correct way during the second surgery and she even developed a hernia along with the tumors

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

Is this one of her first heats? It sounds like mammary hyperplasia. I am not a vet, but have dealt with mammary hyperplasia before in my breeding cats. It is caused by a hormonal imbalance, brought on by heats. The remedy is spaying. If it is Mammary hyperplasia keep an eye on her mammary glands. They can swell large enough to ulcerate.

Is it true that surgery sometimes becomes necessary to treat mammary hyperplasia? Also, have you seen a young spayed cat getting hyperplasia?

 

[fionasmom]

This is quite a story and I feel so sorry for your poor kitten and for you for having to go through this. Is your cat recovering okay?

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

Hi! I stumbled upon this post while searching what's wrong with my 8 month old kitten. She has the same situation but the difference is, she was already spayed when this happened. Can anyone help me? Is this something to worry about?

I know this post is from last year, but I'm still hoping someone will answer me. Thank you!

Hi. What did it turn out to be? My cat had a similar situation

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

Not really. She has developed a seroma so we're giving her half a dose of lasoride in her food as the vet prescribed. But the seroma is too big we have to give her 5 more days and it is still big idk if it will disappear. Other than that, my cat has lost 1 kg of weight, she's lethargic (she'd sleep all day, would only come for food, water and litter), she seems really sad and she's been drinking too much water ever since her second surgery

 

[kittyprincesss]

Can you have her seen by a specialist Vet? Her case sounds very worrisome. She sounds like she needs some focused care by a vet other than a primary.

 

[posiepurrs]

The traditional treatment for mammary hyperplasia is surgery. By spaying the cat the hormone levels should stabilize. I have seen it in an altered cat, but it was a male and resolved in a few weeks.

 

[posiepurrs]

It took a few weeks for the swelling to go down. Spaying is the treatment of choice.

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

What if the hormone levels don't stabilize after spay and lumps keep growing?

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

It appears to me that she has mammary hyperplasia. It is because of hormones. Most vets suggest spaying. I went through this with one of my girls with a litter. She looked AWFUL - waddled around she was so big. My vet put her on clavamox until the kittens were born and swelling started subsiding because she was so big we were afraid she would ulcerate or rupture (it can happen). Warm cloths help if she will let you and I have been told to use a sock of something to hold cabbage leaves on the site - it is supposed to help. I never did that so can't say if it does. If you breed her again, she should be fine. My girl also did not have any trouble nursing the kittens either.

Where is that cat of yours now? What happened to her?

 

[posiepurrs]

Where is that cat of yours now? What happened to her?

She is 14 years old and is my beloved pet .

 

[posiepurrs]

Then it probably isn’t mammary hyperplasia. Mammary hyperplasia is caused by hormones levels being out of whack. By spaying you remove the trigger for the hormones.

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

Then it probably isn’t mammary hyperplasia. Mammary hyperplasia is caused by hormones levels being out of whack. By spaying you remove the trigger for the hormones.

https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/431...pithelial_hyperplasia_a_clinical_approach.pdf
^this is the article that I've been reading and it says sometimes, this condition can't be resolved by spaying so at times, it is recommended to remove the lump like it happens with mammary tumors

 

[Aafia Ijaz]

In our case, we noticed the lump around May last year and assumed it was fatty tissue like you. We had no idea mammary cancer was so common and aggressive, or we would have taken her in when we first felt it. But we didn't take it seriously until we noticed it getting a little bigger/harder in September. Even once we got the diagnosis from our local vet, we couldn't get in to see the oncologist until October. I think it being low grade has really helped us. It sounds like hers grows more slowly than Ella's (but you can't know for sure what you're dealing with until the pathology comes back).

You're right that it is a pretty invasive surgery. For that reason, they do each side separately and let the cat recover in between. She had the mammary chain with the obvious lump (2.4 cm) removed in early November. Then she had the second surgery in early January. (We would have done it a few weeks sooner but the holidays interfered.) It is an invasive surgery, but she handled it even better than we thought she might, especially at ~14. I will say that since we are in a major city, this was all done at a high quality teaching hospital with entire oncology and surgery departments. They are used to doing these procedures and have a good protocol for pain management afterwards. She had to stay at the hospital for 2-3 days after each surgery while hooked up to a tube providing pain meds directly to the wound. Once she was home, we had to keep her confined to one room for two weeks while it healed. She certainly didn't act like she was in too much pain - she kept trying to jump on everything even though she wasn't allowed. Quality of life is also really important to us, and we felt good about doing the second surgery since we handled the first one so well. We also have a lot of trust in the quality of the hospital and the vets there, which makes a huge difference. Has your new vet done many radical mastectomies on cats before?

I was also nervous about chemo, but the vets said that the goal is different in animals than it is in humans. It's about extending quality time, not about finding a cure. Doses are lower to minimize side effects, which is why they don't get great cure rates for aggressive cancers like this one. The goal is to keep the cat as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. It basically always comes back, it's just a question of how long that takes.

Like I said above, she didn't react well to the first type they tried. She didn't vomit or anything, but she stopped eating. With drugs, we were able to get her to nibble enough to prevent fatty liver, but she lost some weight and it was pretty stressful until it passed. We actually were going to stop chemo until the vet suggested switching to the other one that tends to have less side effects. She's pickier about food than she used to be, but at least with this chemo, she'll eat. She still has a few rounds left, but for now, X-rays are showing no signs of cancer recurrence in the mammary tissue or any spread to the lungs. And we reevaluate how she's doing before each round of chemo to decide how to proceed.

So our motto has been to take the treatment plan one step at a time, and listen to the cat.

I'd recommend doing a search for mammary cancer on this site. There are some old threads that I came across on google (it's how I found the site in the first place) that gave some different perspectives for some different cases.

How is your cat now?