Acromegaly and Mast Cell Tumors - ???

Do these 2 diseases go hand in hand? Or just coincidence that we have both and are not hypothyroid as well. I posted about 2 years ago when Bootsie developed a mast cell tumor over her R eye - and recently we have found 4 more scattered on her, 2 on her flank, 1 on her leg and another on her face near her mouth. My biggest fear is these tumors can also develop I believe internally and cause bleeding especially if they are located on the spleen. They can be removed but many times they grow back and I would not want to put her under anesthesia for this. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced these. Thanks

 

Interesting that you ask this question. We have the same experience of acromegaly and mast cell tumors with our girl Piper.

Here's her history:
Jan 2021: Diagnosed with a mast cell tumor in her spleen and had a splenectomy in Feb 21 - she had no obvious symptoms, it was just that she was "lumpy" on one side & we got it checked out. Her spleen was 1.5lbs when removed.
Nov 2021: She crashed with DKA/pancreatitis and was diagnosed as diabetic.
May 2022: IGF-1 test positive for acromegaly.
Sep 2022: Diagnosed with multiple mast cell tumors on her head and neck. She had surgery to remove them - especially as one was bigger on her head (it had been there close to a year but changed & grew to look nasty).
Oct 2022: Cabergoline trial - no benefit to BG numbers & she got very sick on it, so we stopped treatment.
Nov 2022: Additional skin mast cell tumors confirmed.

At that point we elected to not do any additional surgeries. There would not have been enough skin to get clear margins & we didn't want to put her through surgery again.
It's now 12 months since her skin surgery & the various tumors round her head/neck really do seem to be very slow growing.
We've done ultrasounds since the splenectomy to check nothing else is going on internally - all they have reported is a general thickening of her organs from the acromegaly.

She only had a 12-month life expectancy after the splenectomy and we are nearly up to 3 years. I'm not sure if there were skin tumors earlier than we realized.
She's living her best life and currently has great BG numbers on a low dose of Lantus, so we are happy with our choice to watch/wait and hold off on more surgeries.

Not sure if any of this helps but I hope you can figure out the best course of action for Bootsie

 

Claire -
Thanks for your response. Our course was a little different:
June 2021 - stopped eating, DKA and diabetes diagnosed
Oct. 2021 - diagnosed with Acro as insulin needs kept going up (she was on 27 U at one point)
April 2022 - noticed a little growth by her eye - diagnosed with Mast Cell tumor
Currently the one by her eye has grown and occasionally if she messes with it, it will bleed. But we have found new ones on her right flank, right leg and another on her face near her mouth.
We too tried Cabergoline with no success so I stopped it. She was diagnosed as hyperthyroid this spring so on meds for that which has reduced her insulin needs a bit but we still are giving 15U 2x per day. I worry about tumors on her internal organs but I don’t think I would do anything if she had any. She is a happy cat, loves to go out and sit in the grass on the nice days and still plays with her toys sometimes. So all in all she is good.
Thanks for sharing your experience. We might just be the outliers with the mast cell tumors. Have a great day.

 

I know of no relationship. I have had both diabetic and non diabetic cats have cutaneous mast cell tumors. With one exception after removal The never recurred. The exception was diabetic BunBun. His kept recurring even after trying four chemo drugs. Had to say goodbye when the numerous ones got infected. Depending upon location, some can be removed using only local anesthesia.