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My cat has a hard, hot cheek lump that burst and bled. What is it?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Cat | American Shorthair | Female | spayed | 5 years and 8 months old | 10 lbs

My cat has a ball on her cheek that is hard and hot. It seems to be itching her but it doesn’t seem to hurt her. The only thing is that she doesn’t like other cats to get close to her. She threw up and it exploded because there was blood.

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Dr. Massimo Orioles, DVM, Cert AVP, MRCVS

Veterinarian

Published on October 1st, 2018

This kind of lump/growth needs to be ideally assessed by your veterinarian to have a definitive and specific answer. Usually there are two ways your vet can do that a part from examining it directly during physical examination. A biopsy can be taken under local or general anesthetic, otherwise a smaller sample through a fine needle can be aspirated (this technique is called FNA= fine needle aspiration). Differentials include skin cysts, infections, benign or more sinister type of tumors. Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.

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