Melanoma on head- any experience?

maxie

maxie

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Hi all,
Just wondering of anyone has had any experience of treating a horse with a melanoma on its head?
My 12yo grey hunter is going for surgery this week to remove a suspected melanoma close to the base of his ear, between the ear and the forelock.
It's slightly smaller than a golf ball in size and completely under the skin.
Vet has recommended surgery because it has grown quite quickly in size (<4mths). Will possibly go on Cimetidine post-surgey if the entire mass cannot be removed surgically.
He also has 7 or more much smaller melanomas under his tail (smaller than pea-size) which appeared about 18mths ago and have not grown much since then. However the vet is not recommending that anything be done with these.
Has anyone has a horse with a head melanoma, what did you do and what was the outcome?
Thanks,
Maxie
 
We had a horse at my old yard with a massive one on his jaw line. He never had it removed or any treatment for it and it was huge but had no effect on him (as far as i'm aware) he was also quite old and seemed perfectly happy.

Hope that helps :)
 
Thanks for your reply MeganLindz,
Over the phone my vet suggested that it could be (like yours) a case of leave well enough alone but when she saw where it was located , she changed her mind and recommended surgery sooner rather than later.
She said the location (close to ear and the eye) and the speed it's growing at could result in it becoming inoperable in a short space of time.
Good to hear your horse had no problems :)

Anyone else with a head melanoma? I would love to hear more about them.
 
I looked after an old grey pony who has jusy been pts because of a head melanoma. 6 months ago I noticed a small swelling on his cheek which got a little bigger. Vet came and said didn't really know what it was but as he was 30 years old it was just a case of watching ad seeing what happened and keep him comfy. He was put on Cimetidine. In six months it grew from a small 'bump' on his cheek to the nearly the size of a football, it seemed to grow a bit each day. It was on his cheek and underneath and it was solid as a rock. He could eat hard feed with a lot of dribble but started to find grass/hay difficult. When we looked in his mouth his teeth had been pushed out of alignment on one side.
It didn't seem to bother him and he was very perky on the day he went, but it did grow extremely fast.
 
my horse Mac was PTS last year he had numerous melanomas he to had one grow in between his ear and jaw bone just where the brow band ends he died of the one which was in his throat which was located near his paturity gland he had loads under his tail,the one on the side of his head grew the quickest it started tiny but within a year it was bigger than a golf ball what the vet was worried about was it hitting the nerve ending at the very top of the jaw bone i wish you luck this is the problem with greys i have known quite a few to have them
mac.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. My horse is going for surgery in the morning so i'm keeping my fingers crossed the melanoma is a single mass that can be removed easily.

cassie can i ask what age your mac was?
 
maxie said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. My horse is going for surgery in the morning so i'm keeping my fingers crossed the melanoma is a single mass that can be removed easily.

cassie can i ask what age your mac was?
Click to expand...

Mac was 12 when he was PTS i hope everything goes well today fingers crossed its all removed Mac also had them inside his mouth on his lip and TBH he probably was riddled with them inside aswell as i said unfortunatley its mainley black skinned greys that seem to get them sending bigs vibes xx
 
There is one on our yard who was operated on for a melanoma in his mouth. It was a success and he is fine now but there is another one in there now. I hope the op goes well for your horse :)
 
I bought Harry when he was 8 with tiny melanomas under his tail, by about 12 years old he had them all over his head, like cassie summers' lad, but even more of them all over the place. They did not bother him at all until he was about 15 years old when he started having unexplained bouts of laminitis. To be honest I can't quite remember what the vet said but it was along the lines of the tumous having grown all over the place and causing the laminitis so we had him PTS. I was always told that there wasn't a treatment for them although this was a few years back.

Best of luck with the surgery.
 
Thanks for your replies everyone. My horse had the suspected melanoma removed this morning under mild sedation. The lump was about the size of a satsuma orange or large egg, which was bigger than expected. The good news is that it was a complete structure in itself, no roots or branches to worry about.
It's been sent off for lab analysis so i will know more about it within a week or so.
The horse
 
Oops, hit reply too soon.
Horse was munching on hay when i left and will be home tomorrow evening. 14 staples closing the wound so box rest for 12-14 days when they will be taken out.
 
My horse has numerous lumps under her tail and has done since she was about 12. She is grey and is now 22. She had a melanoma remove from her eyelid in July and she has made a great recovery; the vets at Liverpool are brill. You can hardly see where the lump was. However she does have other under the skin lumps on her neck and girth area and I am told she could well be riddled inside with lumps but I won't know until something goes wrong and by that I suppose colic or organ failure or something nasty. Anyway amazing that I had the lump on her eye removed as it was taking up a third of her eyelid and stuck out 1.5 inches and kept getting caught on things. Looked horrid too as she is so pretty. Had I not had the lump removed she would have had repeated eye infections as the sheer weight of the lump was pulling her eyelid down and all the pink insides were open to the air and germs causing her eye to weep. I am sure eventually she would have lost her eye due to an eye infection.

The best bit was though - NFU refused to pay the bill stating that the lump on her eye was linked to those under her tail - that apparently is reason enough to not pay up even though I have been paying them for 19 years to insure her fully! I have complained and complained to no avail - next step the ombudsman. Surely NFU should see that this operation was necessary to stop her eye having to be removed ultimately? They have lost no end of business as all my friends have changed insurers now. Then when I got a letter doubling my premium - you can imagine the response that generated!!

I would have had the operation done anyway regardless of the idiots at NFU but it just goes to show that had I not paid the insurance for 2 years - I would have saved enough to pay the vet's bill anyway. By the way I had never claimed off NFU before. My advice - put your horse first and treat insurance company called NFU with the respect it deserves - don't use them.
 
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