Sybil first came to see us back in 2020. She had very sore and swollen legs. Initially her vets thought she had an autoimmune condition called immune mediated polyarthritis where the body attacks the joints. This is quite a common condition that we see quite a lot, so it was a reasonable consideration. But what was strange in Sybil’s case was that her whole lower limbs were swollen, not just the joints. At this point we decided to x-ray her legs.
What Sybil actually had was hypertrophic osteopathy. This is a very rare condition which results in a type of bone overgrowth. Hypertrophic osteopathy results in the development of pathognomonic palisading new bone oriented perpendicular to the long axis of long bones, involving the diaphysis and metaphyses. This results in the overlying soft tissue swelling. It often occurs secondary to distant disease in the chest cavity. Therefore we did further investigations of her chest and did indeed find a small tumour.
The mass was removed by our Head of Surgery Benito de la Puerta. We’re pleased to report that once the mass removed the swelling in the legs subsided and that Sybil returned to her usual bouncy self and four years on is still doing well.
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