Sarcoid worries!

biggingerpony

biggingerpony

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Today my 18yr old TB went to the vet to have her flu jab and her teeth checked, while there i asked the vet to have a look at a couple of circular shaped, hard and rough areas i found at the top of her hind leg. She said its possible that they could be sarcoids and that I should keep an eye on them and if theres any growth or change to contact them. Like any horse owner i was really concerned and when i got home i did a load of research on the internet, however i found it very confusing and repetitive!

So does anybody know if they are life threatening to the horse? Wether i should get a 2nd opinion? Any things i can do now to stop them getting worse? and any other useful info about the horrible things :)

any advice is really appreciated thanks :)
 
Sarcoids are benign skin tumours.

They can be nodular, flat, multinodular, focal, diffuse.......... pretty much anything you want them to be! (bloody things!)

However 99.9% of the time they are benign. They can become malignant and this is generally when people apply several different random "treatments" to them and they become irritated, inflammed etc and then you have just opened up a huge can of worms!

There are a couple of different treatments (Liverpool cream which is a toxic cream which burns them off basically, applying a rubber band - more for nodular ones, surgical removal but can leave quite a big scar and they can come back, some injections work) However there is also a risk they will reoccur or sprout up in other places.

It is thought they MAY be spread by flys (fly bites sarcoid, flies to a different bit, bites, tumour cells are spread and VOILA new sarcoid!) so a lot of people put fly rugs on. Some find it helps, others don't. Its up to you.

Where yours are....... am I right in thinking you mean in between the back legs up in the top? so where the back legs nearly touch? If so, treating here is VERY difficult!
TBH I would just leave them, monitor like the vet says and if they change any then consider treatment options, but if they are just there and arent doing anything then i would leave them alone and not risk irritating them.

Hope this helps, if you are truly ocncerned talk to your vet about it :)
 
As your vet says, keep a very close eye on them for now, but the 1st sign of them changing size, shape, texture etc... call them back right away. They can send photos off to Prof. Knottenbelt at Liverpool uni who will tell you if they are sarcoids or not and the best treatments for your individual horse. You really do want to stop flies getting to them though as they can be very easily spread from one area of your horse to another. (Not to other horses though, the horses have to be a very similar cell match to transmit them like this, almost like humans do to have organ transplants) Keep them covered with fly rugs as much as possible and lots of fly spray! I put vaseline on my lad's to stop the flies getting to the actual sarcoid. What you dont want to be putting on them though is anything that encourages healing/cell growth as you really dont want the sarcoid cells mulitplying! If they are diagnosed as sarcoids then treatment is best left to the experts, as Lucy said above, lots of home remedies can open up a huge can of worms & make things much worse. Oh, and don't listen to anyone who tells you they're like/are/similar to warts- They're Not!!!

Do try not to worry too much though, if he only has one or two there's a good chance with the correct treatment they will go away and not return. A helpful phrase i was told is 'The more they have, the more they'll get' so it's very important to treat them early and quickly if they are sarcoids. My lad had the Liverpool cream for a particularly nasty, ulcerated one on his leg and by the treatment had finished it was a small scar you could hardly see )

Have a look at this for more info:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/sarcoids/introduction/index.htm

Hope that helps :)
 
My horse has just been treated with the Liverpool cream and all is going well. It is on the chest and has been there since the horse was 2/3 can't remember precisely and now nearly 6. The thing is that when I asked my vet about it when I first spotted it I was told to leave well alone as once you start interferring they become worse. This I did until last summer when it started to change. My advice to you is - if you are going to treat this and use your insurance company do it NOW as mine told me they wouldn't pay out if the condition was more than a year old. Had I known this I would have had something done ages ago. I too have been trawling the internet about sarcoids and like everything to do with health issues, scared myself silly! I am hoping that once this one has 'sloughed' off that will be it. Good luck.
 
My filly had Liverpool Cream treatment last year and has been left with small hairless scars where the sarcoids were. Have to agree with SuenRoux I felt I had to go down the treatment route once my vet had seen the "suspected" sarcoids as if I'd have left them and then needed to treat at a later date my insurance company would have said it was a pre-existing condition and I would not have been able to claim for vets fees. Personally I'd rather have left them but knew I'd struggle financially in the future with treatment costs if I was not covered on insurance.
 
Very interested in this post as I have a warmblood who has had a number of sarcoids in his groin area. I have been advised by the vet to leave alone for the past 2/3 years. Now a couple have grown considerably and am waiting for results from Prof at Liverpool Uni to decide what to do. Now I will make a claim on my insurance for this but I havent advised them of his sarcoids as nothing has been done or had treatment. I am going to argue this point with them as no one has advised me to contact them and I know they will try and worm their way out in paying out. I have never claimed in 6 years and paid my premium every month. This is one of the reasons Ive taken out insurance and could be facing a bill of £1000 or more....Surely its like saying you have moles on your skin and then it turns possibly into something more sinister - you wouldnt mentioned that to a Life Assurance or Medical Cover policy would you that you have 68 moles on your body surely!!
 
My mares small sarcoid fell off last week after Liverpool treatment was applied beginning of Feb. It was near her girth (althought not under it), so I decided to get rid.

In terms of insurance. As long as your vet hasn't diagnosed them as sarcoids before your current insurance year, they will pay out. There is a point on the form which asks your vet when the condition was 1st diagnosed. Every year at renewal, or everytime you call them, you HAVE to tell you insurance of anything your vet has diagnosed in the past year.... If you don't, your insurance is invalid and they will not pay out.
 
thank you everyone for your great advice!
but just one last thing, are they life threatening for the horse? i've looked on the internet and seen mixed stories on the severity of sarcoids.
milly xxx
 
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