# Cancerous vs. Benign tumours and risk of surgery



## Socks (Oct 13, 2013)

Hi, I recently took one of my girls to the vet after I found a small, hard bump next to her left arm. The vet has said it is a tumour (which I agree with as it is non-free moving, solid and slow-growing). However, she told me that it is difficult to find out what type it is without surgery.
I'm not very confident on surgery because she comes from a feeder line and her mother and brother both have had health issues and all very anxiety prone. I feel as though the stress of surgery would likely be too much. I have only had one previous experience with tumours, where I took my lethal yellow girl to the vet and discovered her bump was an abscess. It ulcerated a few weeks later and the vet told us that cancer cells had grown within the abscess. This bump was much larger and I had been expecting it to get worse.
What should I look out for with this tumour? Is there any way to tell whether it is cancerous or benign? Any help would be appreciated.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

would knowing which it was make a difference on how you proceede?I only ask because I had a huge mass removed from one of my dogs last year.I decided against having the mass sent off for testing based on the fact that my dog is old and if the tumour returned I wouldn't be seeking any sort of aggressive treatment .I think I would feel the same about a pet mouse.


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