My dog has an enlarged spleen. What causes it and what can I do?

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  Answered By Jeffrey Milner

  Veterinarian

  Published on April 28th, 2017

  I am sorry to hear about your dog's health, but it sounds like you are taking the necessary steps to try and figure out the problem. Increases in liver enzymes can mean a very large variety of things. The most common includes various endocrine disease, primary liver disease, diseases of the bile ducts, cancers of the bile system or liver, or direct trauma to the liver. Enlargement of the spleen can be caused by the body's need to produce more cells, which the spleen play a role in. This is called splenic contraction. Unfortunately, some of the other causes of splenic enlargement can be masses. The most common two things to grow on the spleen are splenic hemangiosarcoma and a splenic hematoma. There prevalence is approximately 50/50. The needed aspirate of the liver and spleen should provide a fairly accurate diagnosis. However, sometimes larger tissue samples are needed to come up with a complete picture of what is happening. While cancer is certainly a possible culprit, these would be somewhat unusual for a four year old dog. Try and stay positive until you have some results back from your veterinarian. You and him can figure out the next step to take from there.

  

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