West Lothian vets save life of cat with massive tumour

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Highly skilled vets at a West Lothian animal hospital successfully removed a mass so big it was causing lung and heart displacement in a cat.The intricate operation on five-year-old Lois, who was rescued as a kitten, was performed at Linnaeus-owned Veterinary Specialists Scotland (VSS) in Livingston and saw the removal of the mass, a malignant cancer tumour, which was taking up 70 per cent of her thoracic cavity.The medical drama for Lois started when her owners saw was struggling to breathe one evening, despite having appeared to be fine all day.Obviously concerned, owner Hannah Dewar took her beloved cat to the local vets for her to be checked, and it was there that an emergency vet found a large mass in Lois’ chest.Hannah said: “A CT scan found Lois to have a large mass in her chest cavity.

Fluid was building up in her lungs and she was very poorly.“We were very worried as it was a big operation and the mass was huge, plus we thought her lungs were compromised.“However, the team at VSS were absolute experts so we knew Lois was in the best hands.“The care she received was excellent and she is now recovering well.

You wouldn’t know she had been through major surgery and had such a huge mass removed if it wasn’t for her bald spots!”Investigations prior to surgery were led by Nicki Reed, feline and internal medicine specialist, with the operation being performed by Sam Woods, clinical director and soft tissue surgeon at VSS.The road to recovery for Lois was also possible thanks to further expertise from the anaesthesia and critical care teams.Sam said: “The surgery was challenging as the large mass was closely attached to the cranial vena cava, the major vessel that returns blood from the head back to the heart and it