Jack, a six year old dog, was referred to us by his vet because his owners had noticed that he had started snorting and sneezing over the previous month. This had progressively become more frequent and recently he had begun to sneeze blood from his right nostril. Unfortunately he had become quite depressed in the previous couple of days and had had two fits (seizures).

Because of the progressive nature of Jack’s symptoms, and the concern that the underlying problem may have extended to involve his brain (causing the fits), the staff at Willows felt that it was important to image both his brain and his nose. For most nasal diseases we would normally advise imaging with CT (as this is a very sensitive means of detecting disease inside the nasal chambers), but in this case it was considered that MRI was more likely to give us all the information needed in order to best advise Jack’s owners. Unfortunately the MRI scan confirmed that he had a nasal tumour (cancer) that had invaded into his brain. It was felt that there was no surgical or medical treatment that would improve Jack’s now poor quality of life, and our advice was that he be put to sleep. This was a very sad outcome for Jack and his owners, but such a difficult decision was able to be made because we were able to provide them with all of the information concerning the extent of his problems.

 

 

The MRI image shows a slice through Jack’s head at the level of his eyes. The tumour can be seen as the solid area between the eyes that extends down into his brain. It is lighter than the surround brain because it has been highlighted by a contrast agent given during the scan.

 

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