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Canine Cancer: Lymphoma
As mentioned earlier, Lymphoma typically causes swollen lymph nodes in the throat because this is where the cancer originates. If the cancer doesn’t form in the throat’s lymph nodes the cancerous cells will typically house themself in the spleen or bone marrow.
The main distinction between a bacterial or fungal infection and lymphoma is that despite the lymph nodes being swollen, lymphoma is usually painless and most dogs do not show any distinctive signs of illness. In certain cases, dogs can lose weight, have difficult breathing, become overly thirsty, have a fever, or display inflammation of the whole body.
So while bacterial and fungal infections are seen to enlarge lymph nodes, they are accompanied by a series of different symptoms than cancer in dogs.
Treatment of Lymphoma varies depending on the stage of the disease. Without any sort of treatment, the disease can take over a dog’s body in four to six weeks. Thus, systemic chemotherapy, or surgical removal is necessary to elongate your dog’s life after a diagnosis of Lymphoma.
Conventional chemotherapy results in total remission proximately 60-90% of the time with an average survival time of 6-12 months. In approximately 20-25% of cases, dogs will live two years or longer after initiation of treatment. If the cancer reoccurs and a second round of treatment is taken, the median survival rate is approximately one year.
While the prognosis of this disease is quite shocking and stressful to receive, the most important thing is to keep your dog comfortable in his latter stages of life. But it’s also important to remember that there are several other instances that result in swollen lymph nodes. Seeking medical attention should be the first step in getting your dog on the road to recovery, whatever the cause may be.
Where are a Dog’s Lymph Nodes?
All over! There are multiple collections of lymph nodes in your dog but there tend to only be a few we can feel from the outside. In a healthy dog, you can often feel the following (on both sides of your dog):
The size of these vary depending on the individual dog, their breed, and which node we’re feeling, but typically range from almost impossible to feel to around the size of a small grape in healthy dogs. They should feel fairly round, uniform in shape and semi-hard. They shouldn’t be hot or painful to touch.
Lymph Node Aspirate in a Dog
Some dogs can be so lumpy and bumpy! The particular focus today is on lumpy lymph nodes. We will explain what they are, how to feel for them, and why your dog’s lymph nodes could be enlarged.