Is this a chest tumor?

Dr. Marie replied:

Hi. Are you able to send the xrays still? I was about to answer the question but if you are able to send an image of the xrays to me this may give me more information. I am heading offline for the night right now, but I'll check in on the question again tomorrow.

Dr. Marie.


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Dr. Marie replied:

Thank you for sending these images of xrays. I have spent some time in photoshop and outlined what the problem may be. It's often hard to interpret xrays though and this is likely why your vet wants to have further tests done.

Here is the lateral (side) view of Yueng's chest:



When you look at chest xrays, you want to see black where air should be. You should be able to easily see the heart. In the image below, I have outlined the heart, but there is a troublesome area that may possibly be a tumor:



Here is the v/d view. This is done with the cat on her back. (I just realized that I have these flipped the wrong way horizontally, but that really doesn't matter for my explanation:



In a v/d view of a chest xray, when you look at the black areas on either side they should be symmetrical. But, there is a density on the left side of this xray which could be a tumor:



The problem is though that xrays are super hard to interpret. What I can say is that there is *something* unusual there and the most likely explanation is that this is a tumor. However, it could be that this is a collapsed lung or even pneumonia (that perhaps needs a different type of antibiotic) or a number of other unusual types of things.

An ultrasound may give us the answer, but it is not always 100%. If the vet feels it is safe and necessary they may consider putting a needle into this area when they are ultrasounding to see if they can draw out some cells. The cells may tell you whether this is a tumor or something else.

Hopefully it is not a tumor as cats with chest tumors usually do not do well.

I hope this answers your questions but please let me know if you have more. I hope that all works out ok.

Dr. Marie.