"But my cat doesn't smoke!" Symptoms of lung cancer?

[mvp]

Seriously, people. Lung cancer in a cat. Who does that?

So here’s the question/scenario:

Foster cat (also cursed with long hair and subject of a different thread) came to me for some R&R a couple of weeks ago because she wasn’t coping will with the shelter environment and seemed to be developing and URI.

Antibiotics didn’t do much (and now I can’t remember what they had be give her, but they considered them to be strong).

And then the problem seemed to move to her lungs. CatHead now coughs, I’d say, though it sounds like sneezing.

They listened to her lungs and said they sounded crackly-- meaning asthma, not liquidy as in pneumonia.

They gave her a shot of Depo-Medrol which helped for 24 hours, but then the effects faded and Kitteh is back to coughing. The purpose of the steroid was partly diagnostic: Asthma would respond to that.

Now Meower is scheduled for a chest X-ray and the C word was mentioned.

What do you Cat Lung Experts think?

[Simkie]

I am far from a feline lung expert (and I didn’t even stay in a Holiday Inn last night) but I’d think that there’s a good chance kitty cancerous lung tumors maybe began their life somewhere else in the body and spread to the lungs. Which would be a pretty bad thing to find

I hope it is something much more simple!

[Laurierace]

Agree with Simkie. Hope it is a false alarm.

[mvp]

Thanks for your ideas.

So Cat/nCer doesn’t typically start out in the lungs? I don’t know the Order Of Things when it comes to CaTumors and such. I’m kinda out of the loop.

I will say that her behavior is otherwise normal… if quiet and unassuming. It would help if my other cat would just move. out.

[arbiter]

I adopted a cat when he was about six from student, who was a chain smoker. Cat developed, and had to be put down from, lung cancer at about age sixteen. The vet said that the smoke is harder on them because it settles. I have kept the chest x-ray and I show it to students to encourage them to quit if they’ve started, for their pets’ sake, if not their own.

[BuddyRoo]

To be honest, in 20 years of working in vet clinics on and off, I’ve never seen lung cancer as primary in a dog or cat. It’s always been a metastasis. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the case with your kitty.

Hope it’s not that. Hang in there.

[hoopoe]

agree with buddyroo primary lung lesions unusual

asthma and lungworm are far more common

metastatic lung tumors ( which are not lung cancer but rather cancer in the lungs) can happen as well as lymphoma most often tied to FeLV

lungworm can be a tricky diagnosis and for both asthma and lung worm they will likely need a bronchial wash

[make_x_it_x_so]

Primary lung cancer is EXTREMELY uncommon in cats (fun fact- in a smoking environment they are more likely to get GI cancer from licking 2* smoke off their bodies). So if it is cancerous, it is most likely from somewhere else and has metastasized.

That being said, my grandma’s cat was euthanized for what I think was primary lung cancer (I didn’t actually talk to the vet so it’s possible that was a miscommunication) not too many years ago. So it can happen.

I hope that your kitty has something more treatable going on!

[mvp]

And lung worm is another potential cause?

She’ll get X-rayed tomorrow (thurs) so I can update you guys after that.

[Bicoastal]

A vet said a dog’s lung xray indicated she lived with a smoker. Correct! The mom smoked and the dog was Mom’s shadow.

I’ve met pets whose coats are stinky, greasy, and gross from tobacco smoke. It seems logical that pets can suffer consequences of secondhand smoke.

[SmartAlex]

Lung Worm? I’m picturing something like the sandworms in Beelteuice.

[french_fry]

Seconding the hope that it’s asthma or lungworm - much more treatable.

This doesn’t sound exactly like what you have going on, but when I first took in my now 1.5 year old kitten at around 6 months she had extremely severe breathing episodes - hairball-like couching/sneezing sounds that wouldn’t stop without intervention. We had to take her to the emergency vet for a sedative, steroid injection and oxygen several times and they heard the “crackling” lungs so informally diagnosed her with asthma. The oral steroids and bronchodilator they sent us home with didn’t actually help, though. At our vet’s recommendation we set her up with a pricy kitty inhaler and that helped even less - it may have even made her episodes worse since getting the mist into her was so stressful for her.

Super long story short, we explored all sorts of options - nodes somewhere in her nose or throat, lungworm, cancer, etc. Finally figured out through trial and error it was a severe allergy to chicken. Vet has never heard of anything like it - I wouldn’t have thought of it myself if a COTHer hadn’t mentioned it. She hasn’t had a single breathing issue since we took her off chicken.

Fingers crossed it’s something as treatable/manageable as my cat has!

[clint]

Someone dropped an adult male cat off near our home, to live in the country, I guess. He was super nice, and I took him to the vet for vaccinations/neuter. He seemed to be breathing hard. This super nice cat had lung cancer. X-rays confirmed it, and whether it was a met or not I don’t know. It was very advanced, and the kindest thing to do was put him down. Both the vet and I just stood there and cried, while he slipped away.

[DMK]

yeah, lymphoma. It sucks. One weekend I was petting my cat and thought “wait… cats don’t have adam’s apples?” Monday I was in the vet’s office and the biopsy was not good but nothing significant on the x-rays. I made an appointment to see the specialist, it was two weeks out. She went into respiratory failure and died within 10 days (as I was frantically driving to the ER vet knowing full well what “agonal breathing” was, but pretending I did not).

As sucktacular as that memory is, I’m sure it was better than the potential outcomes from the slow cancer death. But all things considered, I wold have preferred clint’s versions.

In her case she had a respiratory allergy of some sort that defied diagnosis, and we had progressed from prednisolone to depomedrol shots. That probably had the double edged effect of masking the symptoms until it was too late, but knowing what I know about lymphoma and chemo versus steroids-until-they-are-no-longer-comfortable, that’s the treatment route I would have taken anyway.

Uh all that doom and gloom notwithstanding, there’s a whole lot of upper respiratory stuff in cats.

[Simkie]

[QUOTE=french fry;8329732]
Super long story short, we explored all sorts of options - nodes somewhere in her nose or throat, lungworm, cancer, etc. Finally figured out through trial and error it was a severe allergy to chicken. Vet has never heard of anything like it - I wouldn’t have thought of it myself if a COTHer hadn’t mentioned it. She hasn’t had a single breathing issue since we took her off chicken.

Fingers crossed it’s something as treatable/manageable as my cat has![/QUOTE]

I have two that get asthma attacks if they’re fed chicken. One has IBD, too. They’re sisters, and mom had asthma.

Vets sometimes discount diet when they shouldn’t, don’t they?

[LauraKY]

There’s blastomycosis too, if you’re in a risk area.

[Pippigirl]

[QUOTE=mvp;8329360]
And lung worm is another potential cause?

She’ll get X-rayed tomorrow (thurs) so I can update you guys after that.[/QUOTE]

Any updates? Jingling for nothing unusual!

[french_fry]

[QUOTE=Simkie;8330745]
I have two that get asthma attacks if they’re fed chicken. One has IBD, too. They’re sisters, and mom had asthma.

Vets sometimes discount diet when they shouldn’t, don’t they?[/QUOTE]

Simkie, I’m pretty sure you’re the poster who mentioned that my cat’s symptoms could be a chicken allergy. I’ll have to go back and double check because if so I owe you flowers or something - that post literally saved her life!

[FineAlready]

Yeah, MVP’s post immediately made me think of my wonderful kitty that died of high grade lymphoma this past April. It seemed respiratory, we tried antibiotics, etc., then finally discovered a mass in his throat (which seemed to show up overnight - one week the vet saw nothing in his throat, the next, a big mass). Had his sinuses and throat scoped and biopsied, and he died while we were waiting for the biopsy results. That whole thing was one of the worst experiences of my life. I hope this kitty doesn’t have that.

[QUOTE=DMK;8330713]
yeah, lymphoma. It sucks. One weekend I was petting my cat and thought “wait… cats don’t have adam’s apples?” Monday I was in the vet’s office and the biopsy was not good but nothing significant on the x-rays. I made an appointment to see the specialist, it was two weeks out. She went into respiratory failure and died within 10 days (as I was frantically driving to the ER vet knowing full well what “agonal breathing” was, but pretending I did not).

As sucktacular as that memory is, I’m sure it was better than the potential outcomes from the slow cancer death. But all things considered, I wold have preferred clint’s versions.

In her case she had a respiratory allergy of some sort that defied diagnosis, and we had progressed from prednisolone to depomedrol shots. That probably had the double edged effect of masking the symptoms until it was too late, but knowing what I know about lymphoma and chemo versus steroids-until-they-are-no-longer-comfortable, that’s the treatment route I would have taken anyway.

Uh all that doom and gloom notwithstanding, there’s a whole lot of upper respiratory stuff in cats.[/QUOTE]

[mvp]

[QUOTE=LauraKY;8330944]
There’s blastomycosis too, if you’re in a risk area.[/QUOTE]

Hmm. I’m in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. I did know about blastomycosis when I was in NY State. I’m not sure it’s here.

I will keep in mind the possibility of a chicken allergy. Simkie and french fry, how long were your various CatHeads off chicken before things cleared up?

Also, I think I need to know more about steroids and what to expect. Kitteh had a Depo-Medrol shot. (I didn’t know the name of the steroid at the time). I thought the vet said she should be better in 24 hours if it was going to work. So CatThing was better…somewhat… but not awesome as I had (mistakenly) thought was the expectation if Kitteh had asthma and it was going to be controlled by steroids. The same vet saw Catling today (so 72 hours in?) and thought her cough was better. Meh.

Anyone want to give me a tutorial on Depo-Medrol used this way? The only things I know about Depo involve its use in intraarticular injections in horses.