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Emily | 4 years ago
Strange Lump! Seroma?

Hi all! I hope someone on here might be able to shed some light on the mystery going on with our 6 month old male golden retriever. We got him at 10 weeks and kept him up to date with shots and all was fine, but about 6 weeks ago we started noticing a little bit of swelling in his front armpits (one side more pronounced than the other) we kept an eye on it and eventually brought him to the vet when it continued to grow. The vet did a needle aspiration and saw bacteria in the murky clear/slightly yellow fluid and prescribed antibiotics. We brought him to another vet a week later who suggested surgery to drain the fluid and tried that. The lump stayed down for a week while he was healing (on sedatives and antibiotics) but now it is starting to grow again! The idea of it being a seroma has been considered but no one can really nail down what is going on or why. His blood panel is completely normal, the biopsies from the fluid and tissue show no indicators of cancer, and the only strange thing was a high level of calcium in the fluid (there were more scientific terms used but I do not recall them)… he scratches at the lump pretty frequently but other than that he acts completely normal and healthy! We noticed that scratching tends to make it grow/become inflamed and if he leaves it alone, it will shrink down significantly… it is all so strange so if anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it! Here are some pictures post-op if it helps at all! Thank you so much!

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    If it was a seroma it should have gone away and not returned. I would go to the vet and have it looked at. It might be time for a surgical exploration. I have seen this with infections (abscess), foreign bodies, neoplasia, etc.

    1. Emily Post author

      We did do surgery and the vet sampled the fluid and the tissue inside the area. The fluid was infected, so after she drained it she prescribed oral antibiotics. She said that it’s possible that he could be having an allergic reaction to something in his environment?

Emily

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@egunderson

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