Hi Abu,

Thanks for your question.

First and foremost, you should not rule out anesthesia if your cat has a cancer that could be threatening his life. It would really depend on the degree of renal failure that exists but only the most advanced stage would make me consider not performing an anesthetic. There are things you can do to reduce the risk, such as giving pre-anesthetic fluids to remove some of the toxins in the blood that the kidneys are not removing completely.

However, I think you need to do some more investigating first. You don’t mention what the mass is which makes me believe it hasn’t been diagnosed yet. You can have your vet aspirate the mass and perform a cytology on it with the goal of identifying the type of mass it is. This will then dictate the treatment and prognosis. Some types of growths can be shrunk with medication before surgery is considered.

There is very little reason an 11-year-old cat couldn’t have an anesthetic to potentially remove a life-threatening cancer. I would recommend that if your current vet is not giving you a treatment option, then I would consider getting a second opinion or getting a referral to a veterinary oncologist.

Thanks for your question. I hope this helps.

Dr. Clayton Greenway