??mouth cyst

Question
hi, i took my rabbit to the vets earlier today as i was concerned he had not been eating properly for a couple of days. she checked him over and initally diagnosed that he had pain in the abdominal region but also a mouth absess. i agreed to surgery to have this removed. however, the vets have just called me to say that it was not an absess but something they had never seen before- a cyst type formation with fluid and white bits in it. they managed to remove it and put stitches in his mouth. what could this be?? they cannot give me a prognosis or any idea what will happen now as they dont really know what they are dealing with. i wondered if you had heard of anything like this before? thanks

Answer
Dear Caroline,

Man, I'm hearing more and more of this.  We had it, too.  And unless I miss my guess, your bunny was afflicted with tapeworm cysticercosis.  The good news is that this is a fairly benign condition, if gross.  The bad news is that there might be other cysts elsewhere in the subcutaneous connective tissue...but these won't do the bunny any serious harm.  

There are two main species of tapeworm that infect rabbits with larvae, and this happens when the rabbit ingests feed where tapeworm eggs have been left by the definitive host (usually a fox or dog).  The rabbit--serving as intermediate host--ingests the eggs, which hatch, and the larvae migrate out of the intestinal lumen and either into the body cavity (Taenia pisiformis) or, more commonly, into the connective tissues close to the skin (Taenia serialis).

*****
As I mentioned, you're not the only one to see this.  Please read:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/2009/10/cystic-mammary-growth-cysticercos...

Note that the only way to definitively diagnose this would be to send the lump of gelatin with its white bits (those would be the cysticerci) to a histopathology and/or parasitology lab for positive I.D.  But this *really* sounds like cysticercosis.

Please feel free to share this with your vets, if you think it will help.

Good luck,

Dana