CAT LOVEPURR

Does anyone know about feline soft tissue sarcoma ?

My cat was diagnosed with a possible soft tissue sarcoma. They want to do a biopsy but I can’t really afford any more then the biopsy which is over $500!!
Does anyone know about how much it costs to have a specialist remove the tumor (grade 3) and I guess chemo would probably be needed. Should I just let him go naturally?? I really cant afford treatment.

My cat is dealing with soft tissue sarcoma in his shoulder/neck area. We had surgery once done by a regular surgeon, not oncologist specialist, and the tumor came back in 3 weeks. The oncologist said that to gurantee getting the whole tumor, a MRI is needed to see the mass before surgery. Then he told us that he would need surgery + 3 weeks/every day of radiation and chemo after that to make sure the cancer is out of his system. They hope that it would put him in remission for 2-3 years. It is VERY expensive! I have not found another answer, but I am struggling with the fact that this treatment would be considered torture to our cat. He won’t understand why this is happening and this adds great stress. Here is the info I found on the web just googling the cancer:

Fibrosarcomas and spindle cell tumors are the malignant counterpart of fibromas. Fibrosarcomas are the third most common skin tumor in cats. There is no sex or breed predisposition, but aged cats appear to be predisposed. Fibrosarcomas in cats can be caused by a virus, be associated with vaccination injection sites, or develop spontaneously. Virus-induced fibrosarcomas contain C-type retroviral particles and occur in kittens younger than 4 months of age that are positive for FeLV. Cats older than 4 months of age are resistant to the oncogenic effects of the feline sarcoma virus and usually do not develop tumors or they develop tumors that regress spontaneously. Viral-induced fibrosarcomas tend to be multiple rapidly growing truncal masses.

Fibrosarcomas and spindle cell tumors occur in one of two clinical forms of presentation: a solitary form common in older cats, and a multicentric form common in cats tinder 5 years of age. The solitary form resembles its canine counterpart in that these neoplasms are usually infiltrative and originate in either the dermis or the subcutis. Solitary cutaneous fibrosarcomas and spindle cell tumors in the cat are predominantly locally invasive and appear to have a relatively low metastatic potential on first presentation. Solitary cutaneous fibrosarcomas are not associated with the feline sarcoma virus. Fibrosarcomas have developed at vaccine injection sites in cats. In a recent study of 44 cats with the solitary form, approximately 50 pervent of tumors occurred on the limbs and 25 percent on the head and neck. Survival following surgery was directly related to the anatomic location, since the mean survival was more than 36 weeks for cats with tumors of the pinnae and the flank, and 30 weeks for cats with tilmors in other sites. The 3-year recurrence rate for the first group of tumors was 0 percent, while it was 71 percent for the latter. These findings may reflect the fact that tumors in the flank and pinnea can usually be completely excised, while tumors in other location, such as the limbs, cannot be completely excised unless aggressive surgery (i.e., limb amputation) is perforined. In addition, the mitotic rate of these tumors could be used as a prognostic factor; when fibrosarcomas were evaluated according to their mitotic indexes (i.e., the sum of mitotic figures in 10 high-power fields), it was found that cats in which the mitotic index was under 6 had a median survival of 128 weeks, while the survival was 16 weeks in tumors with a mitotic index greater than 6. In the same study, only 11 percent of cats had evidence of metastatic disease.

Nonviral spontaneous or vaccine-induced fibrosarcomas are usually solitary, variable in size, irregular to nodular in shape, poorly circumscribed, firm or fleshy with soft friable areas, fixed to the overlying skin, and frequently ulcerated. Vaccination-site fibrosarcomas are seen most commonly over the dorsal scapular area or at the site of intramuscular rabies vaccination. Fibrosarcomas developing at the site of previous administration of vaccines are being recognized with increasing frequency. The tumors develop months to years after injection and have not been definitively linked with any particular vaccine or formulation. To date, infectious agents have not been identified in any of the vaccines reportedly associated with the development of these tumors. It is possible that the tumor development may be initiated by the presence of an inert material or adjuvant in the vaccine. However, the incidence of vaccine-induced sarcomas is extremely low, 20-30 in 100,000 vaccines administered. At our present level of understanding this very complex problem, it is clear that for most cats, the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risk of tumor development.