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Most Lumps on Dogs Aren’t Being Tested, Vet Survey Finds

Most Lumps on Dogs Aren’t Being Tested, Vet Survey Finds
A veterinary team examining a dog on a clinic table

You’re scratching your dog behind the ribs, the way they love, and your fingers stop. There’s a little lump there. Was it there last week? Has it always been there?

If you’ve had that moment, you know the small drop in your stomach that comes with it. And you probably also know the relief when your vet says it’s most likely a harmless fatty lump and you can just keep an eye on it. Most of us want to hear exactly that.

A study published on Oct. 2, 2026, in the journal Veterinary Oncology suggests that watching and waiting may be happening more often than it should. In a survey of U.S. veterinary professionals, only 29 percent said they performed a fine needle aspiration on more than half of the skin and under-the-skin lumps they saw. That quick needle test is the simplest way to find out what a lump actually is.

What the researchers actually did

The paper is called “Underutilization of fine needle aspiration for canine and feline superficial masses-survey results.” The corresponding author is Gillian Dank, a veterinary oncologist at Onco Pet Veterinary Services in Israel. Her co-authors are Tali Buber, Liron Levy-Hirsch, Asher Fink, Natalie Marks, Uri Greenberg and Erez Hanael.

The team wrote a 16-question survey and sent it by email, through the veterinary publication Clinician’s Brief, to 10,000 small-animal veterinary professionals in the United States. That included veterinarians, veterinary technicians and practice managers. In the end, 240 people responded, and 235 answered every question.

Most of the respondents were veterinarians (about 63 percent), and more than 80 percent worked in general practice. In other words, these were mostly the people you’d see at a regular checkup, not specialists.

The survey asked how often they sampled lumps on dogs and cats, what got in the way when they didn’t and how much they trusted their hands alone to tell what a lump was.

💡 Did you know? According to the paper, about 30 percent of all tumors in dogs and cats start in the skin. That’s one reason lumps you can feel at home matter so much. They’re often the first sign anyone notices.

So what is a fine needle aspiration?

A fine needle aspiration, or FNA, is about as simple as a diagnostic test gets. The vet slips a thin needle into the lump and draws out a few cells. Then those cells are examined under a microscope.

The paper lists the test’s advantages plainly: it’s minimally invasive, low risk, cost-effective and quick to give results. Korean news agency News1 (뉴스1) described it in a similar way in a 2025 story, noting that the test is done quickly, without anesthesia. That’s a big deal for nervous dogs and their nervous humans.

An FNA can suggest whether a lump looks benign, looks malignant or needs more testing. It doesn’t always give the final word. Sometimes a biopsy, where a piece of tissue is removed and examined, is still needed. But it’s often the first real clue.

The paper also points out what veterinary guidelines recommend. When a mass is at least 1 cm (about the size of a pea) and has been there for one month or longer, an FNA or a biopsy is recommended to get a diagnosis and guide treatment.

A veterinarian examining a dog lying on a treatment table

Most lumps never got the needle

Here’s the heart of the study. On average, respondents said they performed an FNA on just 39 percent of the skin and under-the-skin masses they saw. Only about three in 10 did it on more than half of those lumps.

Experience seemed to make a difference. Veterinary professionals with more than 20 years in practice were overrepresented among the people who sampled lumps most often.

Workload mattered too. Respondents saw an average of 2.81 patients with lumps a day. But the 26 percent who saw four or more a day were significantly less likely to do an FNA. The authors suggest one reason may be “the cumulative cognitive load associated with making numerous clinical decisions throughout the day.” Anyone who’s worked a long, busy shift knows how that feels.

There was a surprising finding about technology, too. About 35 percent of respondents used digital cytology, a way of reviewing cell samples digitally. Those users actually performed FNAs less often than everyone else (35 percent of masses versus 42 percent) and reported more results that came back inconclusive.

Why lumps got skipped

When the survey asked for the main reason an FNA didn’t happen, the answers were very human.

The most common reason, at 35 percent, was that the mass seemed benign. Cost came next at 32 percent. Another 19 percent said the client declined for reasons other than cost. Smaller groups pointed to limited confidence in the test (8 percent), time (4 percent) or not having in-house cytology (2 percent).

That first answer deserves a closer look. Because in the same survey, half of the respondents (118 of 235) said that feeling a lump and taking a history was reliable in fewer than 10 percent of cases. In other words, lots of lumps were being judged by touch in a group where half said touch rarely tells the whole story.

The researchers also found that respondents, on average, went straight to removing a lump without an FNA first in about 30 percent of cases. People who felt more confident diagnosing by touch were 2.5 times as likely to skip that first needle test.

⚠️ Please don’t wait. If you find a new lump on your dog, or a lump that’s growing, changing or sticking around for a month, book a vet visit and ask whether a fine needle aspiration makes sense. It’s a fair question, and a good vet won’t mind you asking.

Why this matters for dogs

It’s easy to brush off lumps, especially on an older dog who seems to collect them. Many really are harmless. But the paper notes that malignant tumors account for 20 to 40 percent of skin tumors in dogs (and 70 to 82 percent in cats). Those odds are too high to settle by touch alone.

Veterinary oncologist Sue Ettinger has spent years pushing the same idea through her “See Something, Do Something” campaign, which she has written about for dvm360. Her rule is simple. If a dog or cat has a mass about the size of a pea that’s been there for a month, take them to the vet for an aspirate or biopsy. “I am not a microscope,” she wrote, arguing that even specialists can’t tell what a mass is just by looking at it or feeling it.

Dank made a similar point to dvm360 in 2025, when an earlier industry survey on lumps was reported. “We can never know if a mass is benign just by palpating it,” she said.

The News1 story shows what this can look like in real life. It described Boni, a 10-year-old miniature pinscher with a lump on her left hind leg that her owner first assumed was just a sign of age. The lump had been there for two weeks when she saw a vet. An FNA showed mast cells, and Boni was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor. Further testing found no sign that it had spread, and a biopsy classified it as low-grade. The story quoted Won Ji-hoon (원지훈), a veterinarian at Bon Animal Medical Center in Suwon, who said that with a skin mass, it’s hard to make an accurate diagnosis from appearance and touch alone.

An older dog sleeping on a soft bed

What this study can’t tell us yet

This is a small survey, and the authors are open about its limits.

Only 240 people answered, out of 10,000 who received the email. That’s a 2.4 percent response rate. Everyone was in the U.S. and reached through one professional publication, so the results may not reflect vets elsewhere. Many answers relied on memory rather than medical records, and the authors say some questions may have been worded ambiguously.

The survey also didn’t capture the reasoning behind each decision. Going straight to surgery without an FNA isn’t always the wrong call, the authors note, and there can be good clinical reasons for it.

There’s one more thing worth knowing. The survey was paid for by HT Vet, a company that makes a non-invasive scanner for screening lumps in dogs, and several authors work for or consult for that company. The authors state that they don’t believe this creates a conflict of interest. Still, it’s good context to have, and it’s one reason I’d love to see independent researchers repeat this work.

None of this means your vet is doing something wrong. Cost, time and an owner’s own hesitation all show up in the data, and they’re real pressures. What the study does suggest is that a quick conversation in the exam room could make a difference.

💡 Good to know: A simple habit helps. When you find a lump, note where it is, measure it if you can and write down the date. That way, you and your vet can tell whether it’s changing, and whether it’s been there for a month or more.

Angel Jake Note 🐾

I think most of us have felt that quiet hope that a lump is “just a fatty one.” That hope is completely understandable, and sometimes it turns out to be true. But this study is a gentle reminder that hope isn’t a test.

If you find something on your dog, you don’t have to panic. You also don’t have to wait and wonder. Ask your vet whether a fine needle aspiration is right for that lump, and if cost is a worry, it’s okay to say so out loud and talk through the options together. Your dog can’t tell you something feels different. Your hands, on all those ordinary days of belly rubs and ear scratches, might be the first to notice.

Medical Disclaimer

I’m not a vet, and nothing here replaces a real exam. If something about your dog feels off, please trust that feeling and call your veterinarian.

Sources

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Written by

Ellie

Ellie has shared her life with dogs for more than 20 years, in both Korea and the United States, and she is always reading and learning more about them. Caring for dogs with heart disease and skin problems has shown her how tender and sad that time can be, and how much joy it holds. After Jake, her dog of more than 15 years, crossed the rainbow bridge, she wanted more than ever to help people understand their dogs.