My 8 year old shihtzu started screaming on Saturday, followed by muscle spasms in her neck. We were told by our vet that she had a seizure and most likely has a brain tumour. She’s said it’s up to us if we do an MRI as it won’t affect the treatment plan. How can they just diagnose cancer like this? She’s been given vivitonin and steroids.. there has been no mention of chemo or radio.
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In my opinion, it is a long shot to diagnose brain tumor based on one episode like that. First of all, it should be established if the episode was a seizure or not (it could have been a muscle spasm or a bout of neck pain, maybe ?). I assume that neurological examination at the time of your visit at your vet was all ok. If Sookie has another similar episode, ideally you should record a video of that and play it back to your vet. It will help to establish if this is a seizure or not. Even if the episode was an epileptic seizure it is not necessary because of brain tumor. Problems like blood clot in the brain vessel, bleeding from a brain vessel, inflammation of the brain, infection or even diseases distant from the brain (for example diabetes, heart diseases) can result in seizure-like episodes. So, the best approach for confirmed seizure is to run blood test first to rule out diabetes, drop in blood glucose level, liver/kidney function etc. If the results are negative AND your dog is experiencing similar, frequent epsidoes you can consider MRI of the brain. Lastly, brain tumors do not respond well to chemotherapy/radiotherapy therefore this mode of treatment is usually not recommended. However, some brain tumors can be surgically removed.
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