Rat with lumps

Question
My two year old rat, Mila, has just this week lost her sister, Mishka, and is now alone in the cage.  We've been taking special care to give her attention and keep her company, of course, but she appears to have two small lumps on the left side of her chest and a slightly larger one (3 centimeters) on the right side.  We've only just noticed, but as she's quite shy we don't have any real way of knowing how long they've been there.  I've looked at a good many sites about this now, and as they are soft and movable (which appears to be an indicator that they are benign) and they don't appear to have spread anywhere.  Otherwise, she appears in fine health, they don't appear to bother her, and she's been as active, well-groomed, and hungry as normal.  What is the likelihood of benign tumors on both sides, and what other indicators should we look for before deciding on surgery?  And do you recommend surgery, or to simply keep an eye on her for the next few days to monitor her condition?  We're concerned about surgery, as they are on both sides, but we would even be willing to space out the operations to give her time to recover properly.  Please advise.  Thank you.

Answer
Hi Nick

Unfortunately, having alot of experience with these things,mammary tumors are my speciality when it comes to rats (both my own and other rats that cooee i                                                                                                    c                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   uuuuuuuuuuuu              and in this case, Mila has several from what you describe. They are almost always benign which is good news, but the bad news is, there may be more to grow despite removing these, but there is a way to prevent all of that which I will discuss with you now.

First of all, mammary tumors are usually seen in intact female rats around 18 to 20 months old, some younger, some older. They start usually around menopause when estrogen levels begin to sky rocket. Estrogen fuels both benign mammary tumors and also pituitary tumors as well.

I advise to remove the tumors soon as you see them. This helps prevent them from getting very vascular and minimizes the chance of abnormal blood loss.   The vet may want to take them at the same time or wait in between, going for the larger one first, but with the use of sevoflurane which is a very safe anesthesia great for mini mammals....they can stay under safely for as long as 90 minutes. I Had my 3 year old rat under that long and she woke right up the second oxygen was induced!

However, the skill of the surgeon and the education that the vet has with rats is the most important thing of all. If you find a vet that tells you she is too old or that its worthless to remove these tumors etc....its time to find a new vet since of course this is not true in the least. I get that alot from people and when I find them a good exotic vet to see, the vet operates and a few weeks later I am thanked dearly for telling them not to listen to the vet and euthanize the rat instead.

If you allow the tumors to remain, in time they start to live off of the rats body, robbing her body of nutrients and she will continue to eat, if not normal eating, she will eat more than average because the tumors are starving her. Of course without proper nutrition, the bodys organs start to fail and are not able to properly sustain life. This is what kills the rat. Not the tumor being cancerous but instead, the side effects of having the tumors. The rat will lose tons of weight and become too weak...which is also a good reason NOT to wait for any of these signs that the tumor is taking a toll on her body. The only indication you need to see is simply seeing the growth of these buggers, period.

That said, yes I absolutely recommend you have the surgery done.

Next, I did say that sometimes others pop up, sometimes months later, sometimes a week later. This can be frustrating for the owner, of course....and there is a way to prevent this from occurring.

There is a hormone called LUPRON and it is used in women with problems with estrogen.  Lupron halts the production of estrogen, and this is exactly what we want to do with our rats that have mammary tumors: Halt the production of estrogen. Once the rat has the surgery and is feeling better, about a week later, she should start getting monthly injections of lupron. This will help prevent new growth and if any have already started, it can slow down the growth of these as well.

I would like to go over a few things about surgery and what to look for with your vet, what his normal protocol would be, for example, will he keep her over night, how much experience does he have with surgery on rats,    what kind of anesthesia will her use, which should be ONLY Isoflurane or Sevoflurane...nothing else is safe enough for rats and trust me...if the vet insists on something else, leave the office at once! Seriously!!

I will wait for a follow up to this so I don't keep yapping my trap about stuff...I mainly want to ask about the vet etc...

I hope this has helped you!

Sincerely

Sandra Todd