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Is anesthesia safe for my dog with infection and swollen lymph nodes?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Karelian Bear Dog | Male | unneutered | 9 years and 9 months old

My dog has had an infection for a week now. Originally we thought hot spots and got treated for that, but it has spread more now. During this he has swollen lymph nodes. His personality is OK and he eats and drinks for the most case fine. The vet wants to do lymph node sampling which involves putting the dog under anesthesia. I am worried that with an infection this can be a bad idea and wanted to know if there are any risk and if it's even a good idea.

2 Answers

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Robin Burdine, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on October 12th, 2017

Hi and welcome to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I am sorry that Bastian has not been feeling well. I agree with your regular veterinarian that if his lymph nodes are swollen and his infection is spreading he should have them sampled. There is a lot of information that can be obtained from this sample from a simple infection with bacteria outside the cell, to bacteria inside the cell, hyperplasia (replication of cells), to even cancer. Anesthesia can be nerve wracking; however, your regular veterinarian would not recommend this unless they felt like it was necessary for the procedure. Often times we are able to use a reversible sedation to perform this procedure which you may be able to speak to your veterinarian about-without evaluating Bastian I would not be able to assess if he is a candidate for this sedation. Infection alone is not a reason to not pursue this procedure especially with the proper work up pre-anesthesia/sedation, ie blood work. I often tell clients that I would not recommend anything that I would not do on my own animal. This is something that I would do on my own because of the wealth of knowledge I would obtain from the samples from the lymph node and the ability to decide on a treatment plan that will hopefully stop the spread of this infection. Good luck with Bastian and please do not hesitate to contact me with any additional questions or concerns!

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    Answered By Daniel Fonza, DVM

    Veterinarian

    Published on October 12th, 2017

    Hi there and thank you for using pet coach to address your concern. I am sorry to hear Bastian is not feeling well. With swollen lymph nodes, there can be multiple causes. The reason that we typically want to take a sample of a lymph node is to rule out if the cause is infectious or cancerous. There are a couple of ways of going about obtaining a sample of a lymph node. The first does not require the animal to be put under any type of sedation or anesthesia. This first test, however, is not the most accurate but can give us some more information and I have made multiple diagnoses based on this first test alone. What this test entails is inserting a small needle into the lymph node and pulling back on a syringe that is attached to the needle to aspirate or suck up some cells into the needle. The needle is then removed and the cells that were collected in the needle are sprayed onto a microscope slide and sent out for interpretation to the diagnostic Laboratory. While this test is not 100% diagnostic it can give us a much better idea as far as what the problem could be. The test that your vet most likely wants to perform is going to be this second test. What this second test entails is putting the animal under sedation or anesthesia and taking a biopsy of the lymph node which is a chunk of tissue. This gives us much better information because rather than looking at some cells that were collected in a needle we are actually looking at layers of tissue. Most cases will do just fine under brief sedation because the procedure does not take much time to complete. I would say that this would be the most appropriate tests to run next as it is the most accurate. I would suggest listening to your vet and scheduling this additional procedure so that you can rule out cancer as a cause because in an older animal with swollen lymph nodes we do get concerned about lymphoma. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I am also available via consultation if needed.

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