Introduction
Rats are prone to tumors, commonly in the
mammary
glands and in the uterus. These tumors can
be benign or malignant. Removing them as soon as they are noted makes
for a much better prognosis. This page has a surgery on the removal
of an ovarian tumor.
Surgery
This area contains graphic
pictures of an actual tumor removal performed at the hospital. It may
not be suitable for some children (and some adults
also!).
Our
patient that has been prepared for surgery shows an obvious
abdominal bulge. The head is towards the left, and it is
laying on its back.
An incision is carefully made in the the skin.
The distention in the abdomen from the
large tumor causes the muscle layer to bulge out
further.
We
have to carefully incise this muscle layer without
touching the bulging abdominal contents.
A scissors is carefully used to enlarge the incision
enabling us to remove the large tumor.
The first organ encountered is the enlarged cancerous
ovary. All the nodules are cancerous tissue.
This
is the small uterus with the very enlarged and cancerous
ovary attached. The cancerous ovary is much larger than
the whole uterus. The diagram below helps identify the
organs
The
blue lines outline the normal uterus, while the green
lines circle the huge and cancerous ovary.
The
uterus is clamped and the majority of it, including the
cancerous ovary, is removed.
The
cancerous ovary that has been removed is probably 10x its
normal size.
The
muscle layer is sewn back together with stainless steel
wire, seen here being started on the left. It is very
strong and causes minimal tissue reaction. It will stay
here for the rest of this pet's life.
The
skin is also sutured with stainless steel. Rats are
chewers, so stainless steel is used in the skin also
because it is difficult to chew out. The sutures will be
removed in 7-10 days.
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