This Is Why I Love Surgery Days!

A 12 year old cat was seen by one of the owners of the practice on Friday for a MONTH long duration of purulent (aka pus-sy - see how that gets us into trouble and especially in this case..) vaginal discharge. Oh and she was NOT spayed. I have no idea why not! 


A radiograph revealed a mass like lesion mid-abdomen but given her history and signs we diagnosed her (most likely cause) with a pyometra, or infected uterus - generally filled with pus. The only reason she wasn't severely ill was because she had an "open" pyo. Dogs and cats with a "closed" pyo go downhill pretty quickly because the cervix is closed, keeping the infection trapped inside and quickly leading to sepsis. 


She was sent home on antibiotics and scheduled for surgery with me today. She had blood work that showed what we expected - an elevated white blood cell count and anemia.


The thing with pyometras is that typically the entire uterus is filled with fluid or pus. It sometimes is segmented but not so isolated as it was in this cat.  


Below are some photos of this cat:

A very unusual presentation. That large round "mass" was also adhered to tissue inside the cat's abdomen.
(NOTE for certain MD's out there: This cat never had surgery but had adhesions...gee, an inflammed organ will cause that!)

FYI, I love pus so I had to cut into this and see what was inside it

I was glad I did because as it turned out, it was more of a solid mass than is normal so we took a section to send out to the pathologist.  

Stay tuned for the results. I'll post them when they come in!


Her prognosis right now is good. If this comes back as some type of malignant tumor, most likely it will be a type that doesn't spread to other parts of the body and her ovariohysterectomy should be curative!