Dear Carla:
 
>I've put a couple pics of the sore on my website - URL listed below.  It
>doesn't look like a "typical" mast cell tumor... my son thinks it looks
>possibly like the aftereffect of a brown recluse bite.  It's open,
>"weepy" and has a sweetish-necrotic odor to it.  It doesn't seem to be
>attached to bone or any major muscle mass underneath the skin.  According
>to the folks who rescued these girls from A/C, it started out as a small
>flat sore (at the time they were rescued), and grew quickly into the lump
>it is now.  I'm not sure of the exact time frame.
 
No it certainly doesn't look like any type of mast cell tumor, or any other
type of skin tumor.
 
IT has a relatively interesting presentation - it looks like a solid mass,
not what you would expect from a bite.  Of course, this is at best an
educated gues,, but I am thinking of a neoplasm of the subcutaneous
tissues - possibly of smooth muscle or connective tissue.
 
Advice - take her in for surgery and have the whole thing removed on
Monday.  Don;t play around with aspirates or partial biopsies - yank it
all out.
 
Request - could you send it to me at the AFIP for a look - there won't be
any charges.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
[Posted in FML issue 3263]