Jaw lump, but its not an abcess.

Charlie has a marble size lump on his jaw but it doesn't hurt him at all. I noticed a tiny lump there a couple of weeks ago but beings as he's 9 he's got a fair few lumps, and the vet said its to be expected at his ages, and unless they grow then we can just keep an eye on them. Well, I noticed on Saturday that it had grown, so off we went to the vets yesterday.

So our options - abcess, tumour or cyst. The vet did a needle asp so she could look at the 'contents'. No bacteria or white blood cells so its not an abcess (I see this as good news as I know how difficult they can be to get rid off, and the often related teeth issues!). There was lots of protein which is indicative of a cyst but also some odd looking epithelial cells. So, we've sent the second slide to the lab to test for malignancy.

So, I have some questions:

If its malignant, I assume it has to be removed. Has anyone put a 9 year old bunny under anaesthetic before? Is he likely to have secondary ones already?

If its not malignant, and is simply a large cyst, my vet says I can leave it rather than risk anaesthetic (he's eating fine etc) - has anyone done this? Did it get bigger or did it eventually go away?

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated.

Sorry to hear about Charlie's lump.

I don't really have an answer to your specific questions, but my rabbit Lulu had a lump on her shoulder and it was removed (she is a young rabbit so that doesn't help you ) and it turned out to be a lump of fat which had gone "bad". It was getting bigger so the vet decided to remove it, so that could be another possibility for Charlie and it wasn't malignant or anything.

I guess you could wait until the second results come back, and then make a decision? Fingers crossed for you and Charlie