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Jacqueline W. Pearce, DVM, MS, assistant teaching professor
of comparative ophthalmology at the MU Veterinary Medical Teaching
Hospital, removes a rare melanoma from the eye of a young Missouri Fox
Trotter.
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For Angel, a 4-year-old Missouri Fox Trotter, the options
appeared limited. At the urging of a friend who operates the ranch where
the young horse is boarded, Angel’s owner, Laurie McCarthy of Bentonville,
Ark., took her horse to a local veterinarian for what she suspected was a
blood clot in Angel’s eye. The veterinarian’s diagnosis was far worse.
McCarthy was told that Angel’s eye was afflicted with a tumor of the iris,
which was suspected to be a rare malignant melanoma.
The usual treatment to prevent the potentially deadly cancer
from spreading and save an animal’s life is removal of the eye. However,
McCarthy remained hopeful that another solution could be found.
“She’s a young horse and she’s very smart,” McCarthy said of
Angel, whom she had recently started training. “She picks things up
quickly. I wanted her to have the best chance to be a well-rounded horse.”
McCarthy and her friend Rebecca Christians brought Angel to
the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital to learn if
Angel would be a candidate for treatment other than excision of her eye.
Dr. Jacqueline Pearce, a veterinary ophthalmologist, attempted to treat the
tumor using a laser procedure. However, the horse’s blue eye pigment
prevented the procedure, which has been successful in dogs, cats and
brown-eyed horses, from working.
Undeterred, McCarthy returned to Columbia two weeks later with
Angel ready to take another chance. Pearce had agreed to try to surgically
remove the cancerous tumor while attempting to save the eye. While
melanomas are not uncommon in the eyes of dogs and cats, they are rare in
horses. There had been only one documented case in which a melanoma was
removed and the horse’s eye saved. The procedure had never been attempted
at the MU VMTH.
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