Dog Melanoma: Symptoms and Treatment
📝 Summary
Canine melanoma is a malignant tumor made of melanocytes. It often occurs on skin, toes, and in the mouth, and can spread to lymph nodes, lungs, liver, and kidneys. Generally, dark-skinned dogs are more prone than light-skinned dogs.
1 Overview
I. Symptoms of Dog Melanoma
Melanoma on the gums: gum swelling is the most common symptom; the dog may drool, face swell, lose weight, have bad breath, pain, cannot eat, and lose teeth. The swollen part is not necessarily black – it may be red or white.
Toe melanoma: toe swelling is the most obvious symptom; some dogs’ nails fall off or they become lame, usually black.
Skin melanoma: the lesion skin surface is irregular, often dark, with hair loss and even ulceration.
II. How to Treat Dog Melanoma
Because malignant melanoma spreads fast, it is often hard to treat. Current recommended treatments:
1. Surgically remove the tumor and surrounding tissue; sometimes remove a toe, or remove the upper or lower jawbone.
2. Chemotherapy
3. Radiation therapy.
4. Melanoma vaccine: there is a newly developed vaccine that can stimulate the dog’s immune system to produce antibodies against specific parts of melanoma cells, thereby destroying cancer cells. Surgery can be used together for best effect.
Like other malignant tumors, melanoma also develops fast; without active treatment, the dog’s condition worsens rapidly within two months. With treatment, it can help extend the dog’s life by 6-12 months and slightly improve quality of life.
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