Pebbles is having cryotherapy

[Booktigger]

She has been to see the vet again this morning, and the scabs are still pre cancerous, but the fact that one has come back has made the vet mention cryotherapy (either that or it was just to pacify me). Apparently it is just one 10 min session once a week, and seh thinks she will just need 3 or 4 sessions. She claims it isn't painful and they don't need to sedate the cat, I don't envy the vets trying it with her!! They are going to try and freeze the scabs on the tip of her nose, but it doesn't always work there, so we will just have to see with that. I did forget to ask how long the effects would last. She can go to the branch I normally use, so I have to ring them on Mon to make an app. Fortunately I have at least one day off every week for the next three weeks, so will hopefully start it this week. She has lost a bit of weight, not too much but I am still going to put her back on monthly weigh ins.

[Donna]

Lets hope this treatment gets to the bottom of the problem and heals her little nose up. Poor little Pebbles.

[Mags]

I hope this treatment will help Pebbles......

[yola]

Good luck BT . . . I hope this does the trick for Pebbles and clears up her nose scabs.

[Snoof]

I hope it works, BT.

[Booktigger]

I hope so too - she did say there were no guarantees with the ones on the tip of her nose, as it causes dry sore skin in some cats, so they are only doing two spots to see how she tolerates it. If it is fine they will do more. It is very early stages, so fingers crossed this kills off the pre cancerous cells and doesn't recur - I will still be putting suncream on her though, as I would imagine the rest of her nose is still at risk.

[bobbie3917]

i hope this sorts thins out

[Booktigger]

Someone on another forum has said it could be quite painful for her, so I am just doing some research. I can't find anything much about it, so might have to quiz the regular vet.

Cryotherapy has been recommended as a treatment for SCC of the face in cats. In one study, however, this modality was considerably less effective than either surgery or radiation therapy in achieving local tumor control(a). Eleven of 15 cats had local tumor recurrence within a median of 6 months after cryotherapy. We recently completed a study involving 87 cats with squamous cell carcinomas of the head that were treated with cryotherapy. The median disease free interval was 14 months. Cats that had lesion less than 1 cm in diameter had a much higher probability of having tumors controlled than those with larger tumors. Therefore, we recommend that tumors that are larger than 1 cm in diameter be treated with other procedures other than cryothetherapy.

I don't know about under 1cm, but the vet said it was early stages, so she felt at least one would respond quite well. And I did read that there is stil a chance of it occuring in other places, so I would still have to continue with teh suncream, and it recommended keeping them out of the sun between 12 and 3.

[Fran]

Fingers crossed for pebbles x

[Booktigger]

HAve found another site that has a treatment rate of only 70% for this treatment on the nose - if it was her ears, the treatment rate woudl be nearly 100%. And another site that says topical sunscreens rarely work, due to being licked off. Think I will stop looking!!