Five-year-old Ragdoll cat Yurtie was referred to Linnaeus-owned Wear Referrals in Bradbury, County Durham, after his owner noticed lumps around his neck and shoulders.
The vet practice did a CT scan and found a mass under his skin.
*Warning: This story contains pictures of Yurtie with stitches after surgery, which some may find disturbing.*
(Image: Wear Referrals)
Wear’s oncology chief Aaron Harper and oncology resident Katerina Holenova have led the interdisciplinary case.
It was diagnosed as feline injection site sarcoma (FISS), a rare cancer that can develop at the injection site.
The cancer is triggered by an abnormal inflammatory response and affects about one in 50,000 cats, with numbers falling thanks to modern injection practices.
Aaron, RCVS specialist and a European Diplomate in Small Animal Oncology, said: “Following discussions with Yurtie’s owners, we planned to give chemotherapy to shrink the tumor before our soft tissue surgery team performed an operation to remove the mass.
(Image: Wear Referrals)
“The operation involved a lot of creative surgical planning from our specialist soft tissue surgeon Anna Cronin and involved operating on four shoulder muscles.
“It was a complete success thanks to our dedicated team.”
Yurtie’s treatment was made even more challenging because he had developed a fear of needles through his ordeal.
Aaron added: “Although Yurtie was confident, she was particularly needle shy and didn’t like his head being touched either.
“Through the amazing teamwork of our oncology and anesthesia teams, we created a tailored approach to minimize Yurtie’s stress while we received chemotherapy. He received two infusions and purred throughout!”
(Image: Wear Referrals)
Owners Fraser and Robyn Jame said their beloved cat was now back to her old self thanks to Wear.
They said: “Yurtie is amazing and full of life, energy, love and that playful charm that makes him so special!
“He is back to eagerly chasing toys, giving the best hugs and absolutely loving his food.
“During treatment he became quite shy in the head, which was difficult to witness as he is normally such an outgoing boy.
“Thankfully the team were incredibly supportive, giving him medication before each session and calming him down if he got too stressed.
“We can’t thank Wear enough for calming our nerves, reassuring us and guiding us to make informed decisions. It really felt like we were part of the team.
“From oncology to surgery and everything in between, it’s not something anyone wants to go through, but if you have to, this was the best experience we could have hoped for.”
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Aaron added: “Hopefully Yurtie will have a good prognosis.
“His case is a fine example of the collaborative teamwork at Wear Referrals across our oncology, soft tissue, imaging and anesthesia teams, which also would not be possible without the efforts of his dedicated owners.”
Wear specializes in providing expert multidisciplinary care including anaesthesia, cardiology, imaging, intensive care, internal medicine, neurology, out-of-hours acute and critical care, oncology, orthopedics and soft tissue surgery.