Sarcoids...anyone else suspect that..

Bojingles

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... leaving well alone may be better in some cases? I've now had two mares with minor issues and in my ignorance I ran straight to the vet and had, in the first case, Liverpool cream, and in the second, laser surgery, and in both cases the sarcoids have come back far more numerous. I wish I'd left well alone. Any other similar cases?
 

Melody Grey

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I’ve had them surgically removed in the past and they’ve not come back with a vengeance.

I just discovered a small one on mine which I am considering banding (pin head size) while it’s small, but weighing up whether it might cause a proliferation? I think it’s a gamble and they’ll come back if they have a mind to whatever you do to them, but have known single ones be dealt with and haven’t returned.
 

ihatework

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I would ALWAYS leave them alone provided they weren’t huge, in the way of tack and were dormant. The minute they look active I’d hit them hard.
 

meleeka

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I had some lasered which came back exactly as before. Then LC which worked well. Pony currently has one which I’m leaving alone as it’s under the skin.
 

Melody Grey

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I would ALWAYS leave them alone provided they weren’t huge, in the way of tack and were dormant. The minute they look active I’d hit them hard.
Presumably by dormant you’re thinking staying the same size and not inflamed? This one is more like a skin tag at the moment....although I suspect it’s actually a small nodular sarcoid.
 

tristar

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mine had 4 different sorts a the same time two got rubbed and bled i protected them and they went, took 18 months though
 

Mule

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One of mine has an occult (flat) sarcoid. He's 17, retired and he only has the one so I'm keeping an eye on it, rather than getting a vet involved. If it's not causing any harm I don't see a reason to mess with them.
 
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A few of the horses at work have them. One had 3 circles of occult sarcoids that weren't in the way of anything. 1 has conpletely disappeared, 1 is 90% gone and the other is 80% gone all by themselves. The only interfering has been if I have accidentally caught them whilst clipping. So he is fighting back against them himself. I give them a year and they will be gone completely of their own accord.
 

Lurfy

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My horse has had 2, 6 years apart. The first one was cut out in a standing operation. Then he was clear for about 6 years until another appeared very close to the old site. This new one was banded successfully. We had to remove them due to fly strike in Summer.
 

Bartleby.

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Mine had three pop up when I bought him, two verrucous on the inside of hind leg, and one nodular inside his sheath. Within six months the leg ones had reduced dramatically and the other one fell off. I keep an eye out but put it down to the stress of the move (from France) and that his immune system is on top of them again now. So if they're not bothering them and they aren't active I would leave alone, this is actually what my vet advised at the time too.
 

Slightlyconfused

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Mine had reo removed by laser then LC, one was getting big under his back legs up high and it was going to start rubbing so it had to come off and while he was under insurance we did the same to the flat one on his chest.

My sisters had one vet saw it and we agreed as it was no ware obtrusive and wasn't growing to just leave it. It never changed shape so nothing was done.
 

ycbm

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I routinely take them off chemically because I know I can and don't know if I'm ever going to want to sell the horse in future. But I wouldn't have a vet touch anything that isn't causing any trouble in a horse whose value or potential difficulty selling is not an issue, because of the number that regrow if not battered very aggressively first time round.

A friend has a horse with a cluster on one pastern which was done with LC. They regrew and were done again. After about five years, they're back and look no different from how they started out. I have another friend with a horse she bought with a ball in the armpit twenty years ago which has shrunk over time and never caused an issue.

The big problem with sarcoids is the campaign by the guy who developed the Liverpool Cream, Professor Knottenbelt, to get people to recognise that they are a form of cancer. He is on record writing 'a horse with a sarcoid has no value', and the sarcoid education campaign is very much responsible for having nearly created that situation.

When I was first into horses forty years ago nobody worried about angleberries or warts, which is what we called them.

I'd say that aggressive regrowth with an increase in numbers is rare, and you were very unlucky to have two do it.
 
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Bojingles

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Yes I think you might sometimes be right. A vet will always have to take remove them jic - but my experience of lumps and bumps in people dogs and horses is observe before action.
Presumably by dormant you’re thinking staying the same size and not inflamed? This one is more like a skin tag at the moment....although I suspect it’s actually a small nodular sarcoid.

I'll definitely be taking this approach from now on and am gutted I didn't do so earlier.
 

Bojingles

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The big problem with sarcoids is the campaign by the guy who developed the Liverpool Cream, Professor Knottenbelt, to get people to recognise that they are a form of cancer. He is on record writing 'a horse with a sarcoid has no value', and the sarcoid education campaign is very much responsible for having nearly created that situation.

Yes, I agree. I was thinking about it only this morning. He cornered the market and also seemed to suffocate further research. He pushed the cream so hard a novice like me wouldn't have any better ideas or the knowledge to disagree! I think he's got a lot to answer for.
 

Meowy Catkin

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If you are going to leave them untreated and just observe, I would suggest that you take regular photos and also measure them. It can be hard to rely on memory alone when you are observing things long term.

It is also worth noting that some lumps and bumps are assumed to be sarcoids (or melanomas on a grey) when they aren't. I have two horses that had lumps turn out to be not what was expected on histology. One was 'melanomas' that were actually fungal and another horse had a 'sarcoid' that was actually a keratoma. My grey has also had sarcoids and I did have them treated as they were worsening (they looked very different from the fungal lumps, but the fungal lumps looked very similar to the keratoma).
 

AnShanDan

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I don't know about them coming back worse but I do agree that there has been a campaign of fear promoted by Prof K. The idea that a horse with a sarcoid has no value is so totally far off the mark as to be ludicrous but because he is obv. well known and well qualified, people believe it.
Horses with sarcoids most def. do change hands for very significant figures.
My own experience of having a horse treated with the cream was actually entirely successful and he never got another one.
 

Merrymoles

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Mine has a large occult sarcoid on his face. The only time it gets touched is if he catches it and nicks it as the skin is thinner there and there is no hair to protect it. He just gets a dab of antiseptic in that case.

He also has a few small nodules on his sheath which I suspect may be sarcoids but I leave well alone while keeping an eye to check they are not growing or inflamed.

My last horse had one under his belly, although not near the girth, which the vet advised me to draw around on a piece of paper so that I could monitor growth. One day it dropped off, leaving a bit of a hole which I also used antiseptic cream on to keep the flies off, and it never came back during the rest of his life.

So in my case, I don't intervene but I am also well aware that there are many different types of sarcoids, with a different prognosis and a differing degree of success in treatment so, if anyone has a horse with a new sarcoid, I would always advise getting it checked if it grows, inflames, weeps or bleeds.
 

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I've had two previous horses treated for sarcoids. One horse was a success, the "root" of the sarcoid plopped out after a course of LC cream and it healed up nicely. The second horse developed some small plague sacoids in the girth area so I decided to get them treated. The vet practise didn't apply the cream correctly (they were only treating whatever 2 they felt first and that was often a different two as there were 4 in the cluster!) and as such they came back with a vengeance and a massive big plague one appeared between her hind legs. I switched vet practice and the new practice treated the original, regrown, sarcoids as well as the new one. The new one was a mess; it got really angry and really big. It was swollen, bleeding and really painful for the horse so she was also getting danolin. Hers had to be treated due to the location but it was a pleasant experience; it wouldn't have been so dramatic if the first practice had treated it right initially.

Almost overnight my current horse grew a sarcoid on the shaft of his penis (not quite sure how this caught my eye!) aged 3. I decided to employ willful neglect as I didn't really want a vet poking about that area of him. It grew to the size of a blueberry and a tiny, half a jelly tot, plague one appeared on his chest.

I started feeding turmeric and applying a turmeric/nappy cream mix to the one on his chest only. The one on his chest grew to a full jelly tot size then it burst, healed and now there is a tiny dot of scar tissue. The one on his penis started to shrink and shrivel and now it's totally gone. Now the feeding of the turmeric may just have been coincidental timing and that's the path those sarcoids were going to take regardless or the turmeric may have had an impact; I couldn't say either way.

This horse also arrived with me malnourished, underweight and I'm going to guess at a compromised immune system. His field when he arrived was next to a field of cattle and I did notice that several of the cattle did have sarcoids/warts. I could adding 2 + 2 and getting 4549025348 but I don't know if the transference by flies/low immunity/rundown/presence of infected cattle were the cause or if it was purely immunity related or just one of those things.

Additionally the horse with the small plague sarcoids in the girth area only developed them after surgery and a long period of stress/lameness. I think it was the vet, or else I've read it somewhere, that horses under stress and/or with low immunity can be prone to developing sarcoids. Maybe part of Chip's disappearing was just that he was in better health and getting the nutritional support and lifestyle that he needed?
 

ycbm

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Has anyone tried bloodroot cream?


I haven't, but know it can work. People think it is gentle because it's natural, but it works because it contains a very toxic chemical, sanguinarine.
 

oldie48

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Rose has what looks suspiciously like an occult sarcoid on her inner thigh. It was noted on vetting and I had an adjustment in her price but vet's advice was to just keep an eye on it. I've had her 7 months now and if anything it appears to be going so i am keeping my fingers crossed. I think it is of note that she wasn't in the best of condition when I bought her and I feed turmeric, no idea if this is connected or not. A previous horse had a possible saroid in his armpit which was surgically removed, quite cheaply, and it never reoccured.
 
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Gamebird

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Yes, I agree. I was thinking about it only this morning. He cornered the market and also seemed to suffocate further research. He pushed the cream so hard a novice like me wouldn't have any better ideas or the knowledge to disagree! I think he's got a lot to answer for.

This makes me really sad. Professor Knottenbelt has spent a lifetime promoting and furthering equine welfare. I have been dealing with him in a professional capacity for nearly 25 years and can assure you that he recommends many different treatments for sarcoids of different types in different locations - from BCG injections, through various topical treatments (only one of which is the infamous 'Liverpool' cream) to radioactive implants to laser removal. Far from suffocating research, he instigates it and is always looking for new and better ways of treating sarcoids. He is also an expert in several other fields including wound healing. He does believe in treating most sarcoids because, as he rightly points out, they are cancer, and people need to stop thinking of them as 'warts'. Prof Knottenbelt is one of the foremost experts in the world in the field of equine dermatology, and he would admit that even he is still learning something new every day. To be so disparaging (and I am aiming this at several people) about someone so ensconced in the welfare of the horse and furthering our ability to treat this horrid disease seems very mean indeed.
 

Mule

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This makes me really sad. Professor Knottenbelt has spent a lifetime promoting and furthering equine welfare. I have been dealing with him in a professional capacity for nearly 25 years and can assure you that he recommends many different treatments for sarcoids of different types in different locations - from BCG injections, through various topical treatments (only one of which is the infamous 'Liverpool' cream) to radioactive implants to laser removal. Far from suffocating research, he instigates it and is always looking for new and better ways of treating sarcoids. He is also an expert in several other fields including wound healing. He does believe in treating most sarcoids because, as he rightly points out, they are cancer, and people need to stop thinking of them as 'warts'. Prof Knottenbelt is one of the foremost experts in the world in the field of equine dermatology, and he would admit that even he is still learning something new every day. To be so disparaging (and I am aiming this at several people) about someone so ensconced in the welfare of the horse and furthering our ability to treat this horrid disease seems very mean indeed.
They are generally benign tumours though.
 

SusieT

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Ditto to Gamebird- and if you have ever discussed a sarcoid with him you'll know one of the strong areas he advocates is not to 'play' with them due to the potential for them to come back more aggressively, and that different types of sarcoids are sutiable for different types of treatment - i..e not all are liverpool cream suitable.
Sarcoids are dangerous, messing them can make them worse, sometimes no matter what you do it can make them worse. Many warts, melanomas, papillomas are misdiagnosed as sarcoids which explains some of the ' dropped off when I applied x, y or z and waiting two years' reports.
All sarcoids should be dealt with by a vet and asssessed by a sarcoid expert.
 

ycbm

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They are generally benign tumours though.


And many horses are having completely unnecessary intervention, with the risk of making things worse, either because it's now believed that a horse with a sarcoid has no value, or because it's believed that sarcoids will inevitably turn cancerous.

I don't believe either of those, but I will always remove them, no matter how innocuous they are, because I might one day want to sell the horse and its market will be severely reduced in both number of buyers and value, if it has one.

The Professor is extremely well meaning and has nothing but horse welfare in his aims, but he's created a difficult situation for sellers of horses with sarcoids with statements like " a horse with sarcoids will be worth less than one without. For example, an international show jumper worth £1million without sarcoids might only be worth £10,000 with them — the difference is that much. " , and at 5.05 in this video "a horse with sarcoids has no value'.

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Many vets advocate watch and wait for inactive ones that aren't in the way of tack. In a horse which would never be for sale, that would be my approach.
 
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