Just like humans, horses can get skin cancer, and their faces and eyes can be particularly vulnerable.
Rowdy is a 16-year-old American Paint Horse. He’s mostly white, with some brown spots, and has pink eyelids. His owner, Christie Goddard, never realized he was at a high risk of getting skin cancer, because of his lighter coloring.
“I never bothered with fly masks or UV protection for him because he wouldn’t keep it on, and so I just thought, it’s a waste of time, it’s a waste of money, why am I putting something on him that he doesn’t need?” Goddard explained. “But obviously he very much needs that UV protection and I wish I had known, since he’s basically lived his whole life without it.”
Goddard noticed Rowdy had two lumps on his eyelids, which were growing rapidly. She called the Virginia Tech Veterinary Teaching Hospital, and an ophthalmology team diagnosed one of the lumps as a type of cancerous skin tumor, called ocular squamous cell carcinoma.
“It can grow very fast and aggressively, and more tumors in that area are likely if they don’t get all of the tumor,” Goddard learned.
Doctors were able to surgically remove the cancerous tumor, and did light therapy to kill any other remaining cancer cells. This type of cancer typically doesn’t metastasize into other parts of the body, said Renata Ramos, an ophthalmologist at the teaching hospital.
“It can happen with any breed or any color horse, but most likely the ones with very low pigmentation around the eyes,” Ramos said.
Today, Rowdy is doing great, partly because he was diagnosed early, Ramos said.
Since patients with squamous cell carcinoma are at a high risk of reoccurrence, Ramos strongly recommended Rowdy wear a protective face mask.
“For Rowdy specifically, we recommended that anytime he’s outside, because he does have a light skin, pink skin, to have a fly mask,” Ramos said.
She said if horse owners see any lumps on their horses that appear to grow quickly, it’s important to ask a veterinarian if it might be skin cancer.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
