Home

Case of the Month

Behavior Tip of The Month

What's New?

“Sugar” Wilson is an eleven year old Cockapoo that was presented to SCVH because of a persistent dry, hacking cough. The cough was completely unresponsive to treatment. Physical exam and blood work failed to produce a diagnosis. Thoracic radiographs revealed a large fist-size mass just in front of the base of the heart. A biopsy could not be done at that time. Instead, an ultrasound exam was done by Dr. Cindy Duesberg at the Pet Emergency Clinic of East County. The exam showed the mass was solid tissue, not fluid-filled. The only option was to try to remove this tumor from Sugar’s chest.

Drs. Bruce Persky and Marla Saltzman performed the surgery. The aortic body tumor (also called heart base tumor or chemodectoma), as it turned out to be, was intimately attached to the wall of the dorsal aorta. The tumor was meticulously dissected free from the aortic wall using sophisticated cardiovascular instrumentation. Sugar spent two days in intensive care at the Pet Emergency Clinic of East County after the surgery. The picture above is of Sugar two weeks following the surgery, ready to have her sutures removed. We talked to Sugar’s owners about five months after the surgery and they report she is normal and active, with no signs of that nasty cough.