What exactly is a sarcoid?!!

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StarcatcherWilliam

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Can someone please tell me exactly what consitutes a sarcoid? I have researched online and there is so much conflicting information that it just made me even more confused! My six yr old warmblood mare has some small hard lumps in various places (five on inside of off-side hind, one on cheek, one on shoulder and one on rump. They normally go within a few months and then one will pop up somewhere else. They are small (about 5mm diametre or less) and never weep. They are a bit like boils on a person I suppose. Would just appreciate if someone could shed some light for me?:)
 
Sarcoids come in all types of guises, it dosent sound like your mare does have sarcoids but if they are not causing a problem I would leave well alone, reading about sarcoids on here or online will give you a panic attack.
 
Sarcoids are skin tumours, so effectively a form of skin cancer caused by a virus I think and there are many different sorts. But horses can also get various types of wart too - so not all "lumps" are true sarcoids so the term does get over used I think.

Best thing is for vet to diagnose and see if treatment is appropriate. They can be very nasty but others much less troublesome.
 
You can get small sarcoids which are like juvenille warts and are easily spreadable to other areas/horses or very large ones which are called (or used to be called) Angleberry's. If you cut one in half and run a scalpel blade over it, it is just like sandpaper. I know this but my vet let me do this in 1998 when I asked him the very same question you are asking! He cut one off my horse, held it in his hand and let me run the scapel along it.

Can you image a vet letting you do that now in this crazy world of litigation?? They wouldn't let you within ten foot of a scalpel blade and would probably have 'hazard tape' to fence off the stable to keep you away. lol
 
Clippy said:
I still have to check myself and not call them Angleberries! No one knows what i'm talking about!
Click to expand...

Ha ha. My vet was really old school (and very, very knowlegable as a result). I also have an old veterinary manual that describes things like transit tetany, quittor, fistoulous withers and purpura haeomographia sp.

Very interesting. :D

I still live in the land of James Herriot I reckon. God how I wish I'd become a vet instead of an office temp :(
 
Our mare had a nodular sarcoid removed by laser this week (very neat job ) and the vet gave me the sarcoid in a plastic pot looks very different to what i expected !!
 
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