Missy's Tumor (Hemangiosarcoma)

This is the story of Missy our 12 yr. old Lab/ Pitbull mix rescue dog.  In 2012 we started to notice a growth on her front right leg between the elbow and paw.  It kept growing and eventually we had to have the growth removed.  She was able to heal and do fine but we knew this would be short-lived as this type of tumor (Hermangeosarcoma) is a fast growing tumor.  This picture shows the size of the tumor prior to it's removal in January 2013.

The growth was starting to develop an ulcer so we started to cover it to keep the wound from getting infected.

  

On January 9th, 2013 we had to perform surgery and Missy had a 1/2 lb. tumor taken from her leg.  The skin had to be removed and there was a open wound which was 75% around her leg and 4" long leaving very little skin on her fore-leg.  As you can see the tumor grew deep into the leg and invaded under the tendon as well (shown here)

  

Missy was treated with Advanced Wound Care products to control infection and to manage wound fluid.  It is important to have a dressing that 'vertically wicks' wound fluid away from the wound but also does not spread to the surrounding skin making it 'too wet' and causing further damage to the wound healing process.  You can tell if a product vertically wicks because when you take off the dressing it should be in the same shape as the wound itself!  See here how the primary and secondary dressing have the same pattern of wound fluid on them.  You can also see how the dressing wound fluid matches the wound itself.  The picture below was taken on Day 5 post-surgery and shows terrific granulation and the wound filling in after just 5 days!

    

Missy has continued to progress and after just 6 weeks, and no skin grafts looks like this!  You can see the hair has grown back except on a few of the scar lines.  We then moved from using MEDIHONEY GEL to using MEDIHONEY HCS to continue to promote healing.  Wounds in animals can 'stall' when they are just about closed so we used a product that provides a bacterial barrier to outside contaminants and also has MEDIHONEY imbeded into the dressing. This is a product Jazz Medical sells and it is used to prevent infection and reduce ademna (swelling).

  

At this point Missy is doing great!  She is continuing to recover as we write this (March 1st) and we are just managing the final closure for her.  Here is the latest picture of Missy!  We hope you enjoyed this case study and if you have any questions or wish to ask what products we used please feel free to contact us at mmoran@jazzmed.com or jmoran@jazzmed.com or phone at 877-978-JAZZ (5299).

Missy's leg March 2015 (close up)