Melanomas?

The 11 year old welsh section A has no melanomas, and the 19 year old pink skinned one has none (do pink skinned horses get them in the same way? He is appaloosa x connemara) but my 31 year old arab x welsh mare has lots round her tail and one behind her ear. I was reading the Veteran Horse Herbal by Hilary Self the other day and she writes about her grey who had lots of melanomans under his tail, an internal exam by the vet showed that he had them internally as well, and he was put to sleep. Im actually going to ask my vet whether he thinks they might have spread inside the mare as it sounded so horrible
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Cassandra
 
I had a grey I bought when he was about 8 years old. At the vetting the vet pointed out 2-3 melanomas under the tail. They were very small lumps under the skin. He said that there is nothing that can be done about them, that when you see one externally there will be more, larger ones internally, that they may spead and cause a problem but then again they may not. I rode him for about 7 years and had great fun with him, he was eventually retired because of navicular and he was bad in traffic. During this time the melanomas kept growing and spreading, usually in the spring when his immune system was depressed because he was allergic to polen. He was then retired for another 4-5 years. The melanomas kept growing and you could see and feel the lumps in his lymph nodes around the head/neck area. Every vet that saw him would say "Do you know he has melanomas??? He should be dead!", but he didn't know that
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Eventually he started getting laminitis for no good reason and the vet speculated that a lump may have been playing havoc with his thyroid so he was PTS. I don't regret buying a horse with melanomas, I had a great time with him and horses are so fragile if it's not one thing it's another. I've had two other greys since with no melanomas.
 
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they dont (i think) tend to accure so much in the pink skined, i will go and try and find out!

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I take it 'pink skinned' greys are greying genes on a chestnut base, and black skinned, are greying genes on a bay/black base coat?
It would be interesting to find out...Lipizzaners are greying gene on bay or black, aren't they.
I wish I hadn't started this thread...it is becoming too addictive.
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from what i can understand, and already know, a horse with pink skin, is less likley to develope them, all case studies/reports talk about greys, its going by skin colour, if a horse has pink skin it is normally an albino etc.

this artical is long but so far, intresting, and has some intresting pics
http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/SIVE/2003/lectures/knottenbelt4.pdf

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Good find!
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and disconcerting when you have a grey mare you bought 3 months ago
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No, don't worry - if half of all the horses of the Spanish Riding school have melanomas, and it doesn't affect them doing their extreme gymnastics, they you shouldn't be concerned.
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All of the greys i have met in my life with melanomas have had black skin??highly unlikely to be coincidental,tooo many
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I must confess we are a little paranoid with horses health at the moment, having had two heavies with health problems that proved to be fatal at young ages. I made the mistake of reading the beginning of the thread to my sister, whose horses these were, the grey is also hers! Will print off the articles for further education.
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yes through my knowledge, and the finds so far, grey is translated in to horses with grey skin, there was in some of the reading is was doing proof that other things can play apart, for example. appaloosers, living on high altitudes, were more likely to get them.

test have also done on pigmentaion of skin colours...

well you all be chuffed to know i own an andalusion (grey) and a lipizzaner. both have melanomas. the andy has a large one on hes chest. at some point hes having hes balls off, i shall get them removed and get the vet to do an internal, LOL may aswell make the most of him being out for the count right!

S, it is quite addictive, i knew a bit about them but only your bulk standard things, nothing about genetics breeds etc
 
We need to demand further studies, Jhoward, lol!
We need a breed and coat base colour study to identify the incidence of melanomas...
We could capture an equine science student and force them to do a dissertation on it?
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Why will we be 'chuffed to know' etc..... I am sorry to read that your horses have melanomas, as mine has too.

I have always presumed that it is the greys with dark skin that are more prone to them because that has been my, albeit limited to the horses I've known, experience.
 
most of the stuff i found.. most recent is really 2007, there must be more recent studies/findings. thing is when you look at when studies began, not a huge amount of new stuff has been discovered.

theres a lot of proberbilites, and possiblities,

but exact answers there is not. ie.

is one breed more likley to get them.

what the life span.. ie from the body producing a melanoma to it becoming cancer. i know what they say, but there must be some studies/fins out there.

oh and correct me if you can find anything. BUT, arnt white people more likely to get the cancerous form than coloured people?
 
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Why will we be 'chuffed to know' etc..... I am sorry to read that your horses have melanomas, as mine has too.

I have always presumed that it is the greys with dark skin that are more prone to them because that has been my, albeit limited to the horses I've known, experience.

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it was ment in a oh my dear lord way... (and me being sarcastic)
 
shils... just started reading through all the links but pop this into google.... 2008 studies of melanomas in horses... hope you didnt want sleep tonight
 
Fairynuff, sorry took it the wrong way, too much vino.... been out for dinner. I would suggest however that its worth looking at the website I listed earlier because it offers some hope, or at least something to do if the melanomas become active. (Would put a smiley here but can't find the appropriate one).
 
im hearing the rarely fatal bit, but after reading all this i wouldnt buy another grey! very intresting stuff though!
 
My grey horse had melanomas and they were eventually what killed him. Visibly he had a large one behind his ear, a few smallish ones under his dock and some in his sheath. At 18 years of age he developed severe diarrhoea and when the vet came to examine him he couldn't even get his hand into the horses rectum as there were so many tumours inside. It turns out that he had massive proliferation of internal melanomas and nothing would have been able to help him. Personally I wouldn't get another grey but I know my experience was very unlucky.
 
just to add a dash of confusion
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i know a cremello, very pink skin lol, who has numurous melanomas under his dock! he does possibly have connie in his breeding tho so would have a grey gene in there somewhere
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well no good with genetics and likelyhoods etc but couple of weeks ago had my little shetland PTS because of internal melanomas.

He had had external ones under his tail for at least 10 years now and they would 'erupt' about once a year requiring treatment from the vet to prevent infection. They weren't too much of a bother though.

The internal ones obviously have been there for a little while but I saw him on the wednesday and he looked 'off' he started colicing mildly on the thursday night as he couldn't pass anything as the melanomas had got to the point where they were causing a total obstruction internally pretty much. The mild colicing continued and the decision was made the saturday lunchtime to have him PTS.

He was though 33ish and had lived a very good long life. As said I 'think' the melanomas externally started a good 10 years ago and once they appeared we knew it was only a matter of time until they appeared internally so for him to lead a happy healthy life since they first appeared I think is quite impressive, as I don't believe the prognosis is normally that good in terms of years!!
 
My grey has them. Most ive known have had them. I cant say they concern me tbh.

The probability for most greys is that they will develop them. Further probability is that the horse will die from "other" causes before the melanomas will take their life.

Its somewhat dependent on WHERE they are of course.

General belief by most vets is still to leave them alone unless they are causing problems since interfering with them can suddenly cause prolific growth.

Keep an eye on them for any sudden changes. My vet admised me to use a UV fly sheet on jack to cover a small one he has on his shoulder.

Would never put me off buying a grey
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