In a landmark achievement for veterinary medicine in India, Pune veterinarians have given a new lease of life to a 13-year-old pet dog.
The dog, treated at The Small Animal Clinic in Pune, has recovered after the veterinarians successfully performed a rare and interventional cathlab–guided embolisation procedure on a critically ill senior dog, saving his life when conventional surgery posed a high risk of fatal bleeding.
Muffin Zore was suffering from severe anemia, low platelets, breathing difficulty, and large cancerous tumours involving the liver and spleen.
Today, Muffin is active, alert, and steadily recovering, due to an innovative, team-driven approach led by Dr Narendra Pardeshi, veterinary surgeon, along with his team including Reena Haribhat and Ankita Dwivedi.
The complex procedure was carried out under the expert guidance of Dr Dharmesh Gandhi and Dr Kiran Naiknaware, vascular surgeon and interventional radiologist, with critical technical support from Kanhaiya Khaire, Cath Lab Technician, and manager of Cardiac Department.
Muffin Zore is a Labrador(male), beloved pet of Sumeet and Aru Zore,a resident of Pune, was brought to the clinic in a highly critical condition. Muffin showed symptoms of abdominal distension and was struggling to get up and walk for the last 4-5 months.
He was gasping for breath, extremely weak, and had alarming blood reports, hemoglobin at just 3.5 mg/dl, and a platelet count of only 30,000. Clinical examination revealed a large abdominal mass weighing approximately 2.5–3 kg in size.
Further investigations, including ultrasound and CT scan, confirmed large spleenic and liver tumors, suspected to be malignant with possible metastasis.
Dr Pardeshi, said, “After Muffin was confirmed to have a large spleenic tumor along with a liver tumour, we immediately initiated treatment to stabilise his condition and plan the most appropriate life-saving approach. This condition is more commonly seen in older dogs, particularly those with a prior history of tick fever and Spleenic tumors such as hemangioma and hemangiosarcoma, which are often aggressive in nature and have a rich blood supply, making treatment especially challenging. Traditionally, these cases are managed by open abdominal surgery, but because the liver and spleen are highly vascular organs, the risk of uncontrollable bleeding and even death is extremely high, especially in dogs with poor blood parameters like Muffin.”
Given Muffin’s fragile condition, the team first performed an emergency blood transfusion of 550 ml, with blood donated by another dog, Ella, Golden retriever aged 5 years child of Sanjay Patil. However, even after 48 hours, Muffin’s blood reports showed minimal improvement.
Operating on Muffin through routine surgery would have been extremely dangerous. His haemoglobin and platelet levels were critically low, and the tumours were highly vascular.
We had to think beyond conventional methods. Performing open or even laparoscopic surgery at this stage was extremely risky. That’s when the team decided to take an unconventional and bold step, a minimally invasive interventional cathlab procedure, performed for the first time in the world in veterinary practice. Interventional embolisation is a minimally invasive procedure that reduces bleeding, pain, and recovery time compared to open surgery, making it safer for high-risk patients.
Dr Pardeshi further added, “A catheter was carefully passed through the femoral artery and guided up to the arteries supplying blood to the liver tumor. The interventional cathlab embolisation allowed us to cut off the tumor’s blood supply without opening the abdomen. This helped the tumor regress, reduced internal bleeding, and gave Muffin’s body a chance to recover. Seeing him improve day by day has been deeply rewarding for our entire team. This procedure was possible only because of close collaboration between veterinary and human medical specialists. Under the guidance of Dr Dharmesh Gandhi and Dr Kiran Naiknaware, both renowned vascular surgeons and interventional radiologists, an aortic embolisation was performed using microcatheters.”
Within 48 hours of the embolisation procedure, Muffin’s hemoglobin levels began to rise. Fifteen days later, follow-up examinations showed more than 70 per cent regression of the tumour, along with a reduction in abdominal swelling. Most importantly, Muffin is now active, alert, breathing comfortably, and steadily regaining his strength.
“Muffin was always a playful and cheerful part of our family, but after his diagnosis, watching him grow weak day by day was heartbreaking. We were scared and felt helpless. Today, seeing him active, alert, and slowly getting back to him happy self feels nothing short of a blessing. This treatment has given our senior boy a second chance at life, and for that, we will always be grateful,” said elated pet parents Sumeet and Aru Zore.
What is Interventional Tumour Embolisation in ogs?
Interventional embolisation is a minimally invasive procedure where a catheter is guided through blood vessels to block the blood supply to tumors. By starving the tumor of blood, its size reduces gradually, bleeding risk decreases, and the patient stabilizes. Compared to open surgery, this approach offers less pain, minimal blood loss, faster recovery, and is especially useful for patients who are too fragile for major surgery.
Pune vets save senior dog with rare tumour procedure
