Matilda

A bitch named Matilda was taken to the clinic because of the appearance of a lump on her neck area of approximately 12 cm of diameter. The owner had taken the dog to another vet before, who tried to drain the abscess but nothing happened then.

There was a big swollen area, with some hematomas spread over the lump and it was very hot over that region. The bitch had its temperature high, and she was a little apatic, according to her owner.

She was put under medication, anti-inflammatory and antibiotic and she was taken to the vet once a week, until the lump was totally gone. The surgery was scheduled and an x ray and an Ultrasound was done, which showed the dermoid in its sinuous way going further to the vertebral area.

At the day of the surgery, there was a big difference between the skin over the dermoid and the rest of her body. The DS could be palpated, and its opening was clear and around 2-3mm diameter.

The surgery began with the skin incision, and the surgeon started to follow the DS tube while he was dissecting the subcutaneous layers. Not very far from the incision, there was a change on the tissue color, witch was brownish and a few hair follicles were found. Carefully, this whole area was dissected, and it appeared to be part of the cist that was inflamed (it looked like a cist with many “caves” in it).

We kept going further, and the DS tube started to enter the muscular layers of the neck. More dissections were made until we reached a ligament. The DS was going through this ligament, and right after that, another sac was found, but this one seemed to have only liquid inside. The tube followed a few inches more, and it disappeared without any free ending or tip, so we kept looking until a little bit further, we saw another structure that was attached to the cervical vertebra.

The surgeon than, decided to perform a laminectomy and remove this little tube that contained a greasy substance inside. He than, examined the exposed area of the medulla and decided to start suturing the layers.

The bitch recovered well from the anesthesia, there were no swollen, only at the area where the first cist was found, because the space left in the subcutaneous region, there was the formation of some serum. Beside that, nothing else was noticed. Matilda is fine and so is the scar.