Melanomas - experiences in horses who started getting them young?

[maya2008]

Pony turns 5 in a month. Vet thinks the small lumps that developed last winter are melanomas and given they are somewhere inconvenient for pony (one is in her armpit!) we are going to take them out before they grow too large.

But…

Long term what will life look like if she is so prone that she has started developing them already? Is there any supplement we can feed to help?

Third grey, first one that got melanomas so I am not the most experienced with this as it were.

 

[Fluffypiglet]

There is apparently treatment (injections maybe?) that are meant to help stop them forming? Expensive of course but maybe worth finding out more? My horse is in his early teens are his lumps are extensive enough for it to be pointless investigating for him. His couldn’t be removed surgically due to size and location. Vet has mentioned this treatment a couple of times but agrees little point with my horse unfortunately.

Eta his started around age 7ish I think? In the muscle under the skin rather than under the tail where they are often seen

 

[maya2008]

There is apparently treatment (injections maybe?) that are meant to help stop them forming? Expensive of course but maybe worth finding out more? My horse is in his early teens are his lumps are extensive enough for it to be pointless investigating for him. His couldn’t be removed surgically due to size and location. Vet has mentioned this treatment a couple of times but agrees little point with my horse unfortunately.

Eta his started around age 7ish I think? In the muscle under the skin rather than under the tail where they are often seen

Thanks. Ours are in muscle under the skin between the front legs and in the armpit. I would happily pay for treatment to give her a longer happier life - will ask the vet about this.

 

[rabatsa]

A pony given to the RDA had them in her mouth aged about 7 years old. Apart from being unable to put a bit in her mouth they were no problem until she got many others in her late teens.

 

[Annagain]

I found my horse's first melanoma at 12*. It was tiny, near his anus. This was in the days before laser - not that it was in a place where we could have done much anyway. It grew incredibly slowly and other than a handful of occasions when it ulcerated (I kept it clean and covered in filtabac to keep flies off, it always healed very quickly and it was never an issue. It started the size of a pea and was about the size of a table tennis ball by the end.

A couple of years later I found some in his sheath. Until they got to a certain size they weren't visible and he never let me clean in there so they were a fair size by the time I found them. They were big enough that his only option was a re-section which required a general anaesthetic and my vet was very much of the opinion that it wasn't worth the risk unless they caused problems. They grew quite a bit more quickly than the first one and were pretty bulky by the end (Derek Knottenbelt is friendly with my dental vet so she sent him photos and he said they were the biggest he'd ever seen!) but they never really caused him any issues. We were concerned they would stop him getting everything out to wee but they never did. He developed a few more around his anus and in his tail over the years.

I lost him last October at 28* to old age, he'd lost a lot of weight the previous winter and although he'd put a lot of it back on over the summer he wasn't carrying enough for me to be happy for him to lose that much again. Internal melanomas might have played a part in that and I donated his body to the vet school so they may well have found that but I didn't get a report (and I donated him knowing I wouldn't)

If I had to make the choice again, I would probably go for treatment while everything was small and manageable (if I found it in time!) and it was possible. Just don't expect that to mean new ones won't grow. The melanomas themselves aren't that harmful, the issues come when their growth affects other organs. They didn't for Arch and he lived a long and happy life but it's sheer luck whether that happens or not.

*according to his passport which was issued when he was "9". We (vet, dentist and I) suspect he was at least a couple of years older.

 

[July dreamer]

I had a horse who developed, through the years, some on his dock, sheath, in his mouth, under his ear and on his side near where the girth went but didn't interfere with it. The first one I found was on his tail bone and I think he was about 8. These grew very slowly, were never a problem and I rode him until he was 26. He then retired until he was 35 at which point he was pts, partly because the melanomas I could see seemed to be growing and I was worried there were internal ones and I didn't want an emergency. He also couldn't eat hay and would only eat small amounts of bucket feed, so I made the decision not to put him through another winter. It is one of the reasons I didn't want another grey, but I think it is just luck whether they develop and how fast.