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Question:
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"My 12-year-old pug has been unable to hold down solid food for a month—he vomits if he eats anything besides liquids. X-rays of his abdomen looked normal. Could it be cancer?"
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Sudden, severe, and persistent vomiting in an older dog raises concerns of pancreatitis, liver or kidney disease, something blocking the stomach or upper part of the small intestine, or stomach cancer. Your vet has undoubtedly ruled out pancreatic, liver, and kidney disease with blood tests. To look further for a blockage or cancer, I’d recommend a thorough ultrasound exam of your dog’s abdomen and an endoscopic exam and biopsies of the stomach and small intestine.
The most common symptoms of stomach cancer are vomiting, weight loss, and loss of appetite; some dogs with stomach cancer will have blood in the vomit. It’s primarily a disease of older male dogs—the average age of dogs with stomach cancer is 10, and for unknown reasons males are two or three times as likely as females to get it.
Cancer often penetrates large portions of the stomach wall and metastasizes rapidly to other sites in the body, making it difficult to treat effectively. Smaller, more localized stomach tumors can be removed surgically.
Cancer in the upper part of the small intestine can also cause vomiting. Tumors in the lower part of the small intestine and the colon most often cause diarrhea and weight loss. Intestinal tumors can sometimes be felt by the veterinarian during a physical exam, or they may show up on x-rays or ultrasound. Some intestinal tumors can be removed surgically, but often they have metastasized to lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body, which reduces the dog’s survival time.
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