Riding during Sarcoid treatment?

[Chestnut24]

Hi Everyone,

I recently bought a young jumper, and when he arrived at the barn and I groomed him, noticed a little hard scabby thing on his belly. Before I knew it, it became a weird oozy mass, and the vet said: sarcoid! Somehow in my lifetime of horses, this topic never came up, so I am processing…

The vet informed me of the various current methods to treat it, and I am tending towards an imiquimod creme. I am wondering, if anyone who treated sacroids with a vet-approved creme, did they ride the horse during the treatment or is training basically off the books until its ‘over’?

Any experiences or advice on this matter would be much appreciated!

[Alterrain]

We have always ridden and shown as normal through the treatment, assuming you’re talking about that little brown jar of cream treatment (?)

PS- wear 2 latex gloves if you’re dabbing it on with a finger…

[JB]

@Chestnut24

imiquimod creme

Just know that this tends to make the area sore to very sore. So, you’ll have to judge how much it’s really bothering him and whether asking him to learn and work is a good idea.

Is there a reason the vet doesn’t want to cut it out? Did it just get too big too fast?

[Chestnut24]

Thanks for the reply. The vet mentioned the pros and cons including of imiquimod creme, operation, or injection of some substance (that has been successful with canines). It sounded like an operation would entail 2-3 weeks stall rest, which I would like to avoid for the horse’s sake.

The icky bloody part is circa dime size. Have you had experience with removing via operation?

[OzarksRider]

I don’t have any experience with sarcoids, but I ran across this article that might interest you:

Topical treatment of equine sarcoids with imiquimod 5% cream or Sanguinaria canadensis and zinc chloride – an open prospective study

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/vde.12900

It starts off in French, but just scroll down a little and it transitions to English.

[JB]

@Chestnut24

Have you had experience with removing via operation?

Yes, my WB had a pea-sized spot on his lower belly area, behind the girth but still on the “side”, just low. At some point it started growing, and when it was about nickle-sized my vet said it’s gotta go. She cut it out, taking a wide enough area she felt pretty good about clean margins, and biopsy showed she was right. She stitched it up, he wasn’t on stall rest at all, I’m pretty sure the weather was cool enough to not worry about bugs. It healed well and never returned

[walktrot]

My Paint gelding had a cutaneous hemangiosarcoma removed from his belly when he was 26. It started out resembling an engorged tick but couldn’t be removed. I let it go, and it slowly developed into a dark pea-sized growth. Neither of our vets had ever seen anything like it, and one had retired a few months earlier after 50 years in practice.

When I brought him in one day it looked like he had scuffed it on something. As soon as I started to clean it up it started bleeding profusely, dripping all over the floor. I ran out of alumaspray. The grain store was out so I got a powered coagulant for goat horns that worked fine. The vet removed it with very large margins and it had not spread to muscle tissue. She sent it for biopsy. Apparently hemangiosacomas are seen in dogs and the dx was slanted a bit towards dogs. The lab wasn’t associated with a vet school so we sent it to Michinan State which confirmed the diagnosis as cutaneous hemangiosarcoma…

I also found an equine oncology specialist at Colorado State vet school who talked with my vet. Turns out her DVM is from there. The specialist said there was little to be concerned about. He said it was unlikely to reoccur and hadn’t spread because it was in the skin. I recall taking a day off from riding. The vet did a terrific job with the sutures. You could find the scar when he had his summer coat if you knew where to look.

This is the lab desciprtion. I’m including it because this literally was the size of a pea and had every known type of tissue and blood vessels known to horses. JB is probably the only one who will understand it all.

Microscopic Description

Three sections representing the received haired skin specimen are examined. The dermis is expanded and effaced by a fairly well demarcated, unencapsulated, highly cellular, multinodular proliferation of neoplastic cells arranged in dense interlacing streams supported by moderate amounts of collagenous fibrovascular stroma. Neoplastic cells are spindloid with indistinct cell borders and contain small amounts of eosinophilic cytoplasm. Nuclei are oval, vesiculate and contain 1-2 variably prominent nucleoli. There is moderate anisokaryosis and 16 mitoses in 10 high-power fields (400x). There are numerous small, blood-filled clefts scattered throughout the mass. Small numbers of neutrophils and eosinophils are scattered throughout the mass and adjacent stroma. There are also large amounts of granulation tissue throughout the mass, particularly along the periphery and the overlying ulcerated surface. Such granulation tissue is composed of reactive fibroblasts, collagen bundles and perpendicularly oriented blood vessels. The overlying epidermis is extensively ulcerated and replaced by a dense layer of necrotic debris mixed with hemorrhage and large numbers of degenerate neutrophils. Regionally within the superficial dermis, there are moderate amounts of homogenous amorphous eosinophilic material, interpreted as sclerotic collagen. In one section, there is a tract-like lesion that extends from the surface into the mass that contains mild hemorrhage and is lined by granulation tissue and necrotic debris. Such granulation tissue raises the overlying skin surface, consistent with exuberant granulation tissue.

The findings are most consistent with a poorly differentiated sarcoma. Given the described blood-filled clefts, the primary differential is hemangiosarcoma.

[sascha]

I’ve had cryo done on a couple and did Xxterra on one. If the one I used Xxterra on had not been one of the stupid flat ones and I had known ahead how my mare would react to the treatment I would have had it cryoed too. Once and done is a very nice thing. I did not stop riding any of those horses during/immediately after treatment, BUT, none of them were located in areas covered by tack or where tack might rub.

If I had to do another that wasn’t a candidate for cryo, I’d do the immuno-therapy injections. That said, my current horse is far happier to be injected than pretty much any other treatment including things like most oral meds. DMSO? Wear a helmet. Xxterra? Helmet and full mountain biking pads probably the best bet. This is a horse who stands without even a halter for a blood draw, so ymmv LoL

Fwiw (0$$) same horse had what I suspected was another tiny sarcoid a few months ago. Too tiny to bother with and again not in the way of tack. I did the frankincense thing on that every day for a bout 2 months and one day I couldn’t find it for love nor money. It was gone. Delicate flower mare was fine with her nightly “face cream” routine. Wish my cat with a bovine sarcoid was as compliant The one drug (Tagamet/cimetidine) we used to be able to get is off the market and if you do surgery or cryo on then on cats you just make the sarcoid angry and it redoubles efforts to take over as much of the affected area (usually nose ) as possible.

[FjordBCRF]

This is a timely thread. We’ve been on sarcoid watch now prob for two years, Charlie had a tiny one pop up on his face. At spring shots our vet said it was ok and to continue to watch. It’s about doubled in size recently so as soon as we’re through the holiday I’m going to get it scheduled. We were initially hoping it could be treated when the flies aren’t bad so I’m not sure if he will want to wait or not.

This is current. He’s loving life without hay restrictions in the pasture now san halter/muzzle and I’ve been riding him without a noseband to minimize any irritation.

Any thoughts on treatment considerations? First timer with sarcoids

[libgrrl]

I used Xxterra on my mare on a prominent sarcoid (and a much smaller one below that) several years ago. There is some hair loss in that area, but the sarcoid has never returned.

[Horselove5]

I’ve good experience with imiquimod creme. It will make the area swallen & sensitive until the treatment lasts, the sarcoid might also bleed at some point. I was advised to give a week off if that happens and then continue to apply the cream twice a week for about a month and a half. The sarcoid never returned and there’s no scar left. The horse was also ridden normally during the treatment.

[rcy]

my mare had a massive sarcoid when i purchased her. i was going to have the vet remove it in the fall once the flies died off. in the meantime, a lady in my barn suggested i put her on amino acids; said they made the sarcoids on her horse just fall off. figured i had nothing to lose and some time to kill before i would have it removed by the vet so i put her on them. lo and behold, the sarcoid shriveled up and fell off! it hasn’t returned, it’s been over 2 years now.

[FjordBCRF]

@rcy No kidding…what aminos acids did you use? I’m guessing I’ll be in the boat trying to time the flies.

[FjordBCRF]

I just ordered some Karbo Combo + after talking to some friends that knew someone who had luck with it for sarcoids! I listened to a podcast a while back and remembered that sarcoids seem to have an mine system element and the Karbo Combo seems really well recommended for stuff in that vein and looks like a probiotic/amino acid bomb so fingers crossed.

[PonyApocalypse19]

I have used both Xterra and the imiquimod cream with freezing. The Xterra treatment made the spot very angry and inflamed. It took two jars to fall off and left a sizeable scar on his neck. The imiquimod plus freezing - I can’t find the spot where it was on his pastern anymore. Only had to do one treatment set and it fell off. Both bled and oozed here and there. I kept some wonder dust on hand to cover it as needed.
I rode both during treatment. For the second one on his pastern, I put vaseline on it to keep area dirt out of it mostly. My vet checks the spot almost every time she sees that horse and is always amazed that it healed so well.

[rcy]

equinety horse xl. if i knew how to post pictures, i would. it’s not expensive and certainly doesn’t hurt the horse to give them so i had nothing to lose. i wouldn’t have believed it if i didn’t watch it happen!

[FjordBCRF]

Thanks, I know a few people that use that! Just ordered that on Amazon; it will be here tomorrow. The Karbo isn’t going to get here anytime soon so I’ll start him on this until the Karbo gets here and see what happens. Boy would that be great if it falls off!

[Chestnut24]

For those who used imiquimod, may I ask the size of the sarcoid the horse started with? Under treatment, did the irritated area get much bigger?

I am leaning this direction just because I know some humans who used it on sarcomas with amazing results. It is not ‘pretty’ during the treatment but really did the job to clear the skin. It can be rather painful though… I don’t know the horse well enough yet to judge his reaction.

Thanks a lot for all the responses!

[PonyApocalypse19]

Mine was small - the size of a pea or so on his pastern. As we treated it, it maybe got to the size of a lima bean and protruded out more as it was going through its oozing phase.
I used my best judgement while treating it - applied it after I rode, gave him a treat after I put it on. He never reacted like it was painful - but he could have been stoic about it.
I think the freezing spray helped a ton to keep it small and we didn’t need to respray.

[FjordBCRF]

@rcy

lo and behold, the sarcoid shriveled up and fell off! it hasn’t returned, it’s been over 2 years now.

Staring on the Equinity with dinner tonight; I’m going to do a scoop AM and PM to start. Do you recall how long the sarcoid took to fall after after you started?