Nimh, an 20mo old white rat weighing 350gm was presented to us with a massive growth on the underside of the neck that had appeared very rapidly over a few weeks. He was still bright and eating but now unable to bring his front feet up to his mouth. The tumour seemed to be encapsulated meaning we had a reasonable chance of successful removal. Nimh was anaesthetised, the tumour was removed without too much difficulty and he made a great recovery - eating and happy right away.

Close up of Nimh under anaesthetic before removal of the tumour.


Post surgery, the tumour is much bigger than his head!

Three months later the tumour began to reappear and had soon regrown to the size it was before the operation. This time we decided that it would be unreasonable to re-operate. Nimh was put to sleep as soon as he showed signs of difficulty getting about.  Rats rarely live longer than 2 years, so to add three happy months to his life was like adding 8 years to a human life.

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