That is part of the problem, there is really very little research on beardies when it comes to vet medicine. Just like with most reptile species. It's coming, slowly but surely, especially with people like your friend donating his females body for research. My vet wanted to do the surgery to remove the mass and wanted to have a histopathy done to see what it was as well as the opportunity to examine the mass more closely (she sent part to the lab for the tests and kept a small part to examine herself). We were hoping that removing the mass would eliminate the illness along with antibiotics if it were a bacterial thing. But, my vet had seen something like this before and she forewarned me that it was probably a virus. She's done a lot of research herself (she owns beardies and lost one to cancerous lumps-it was her first necropsy). She's really an awesome vet, she's put a lot of time into research and theres a vet website that vets can share their findings, questions and research that she spends a lot of time on. I think we need more vets out there like this one who want to look for the causes and try to understand them in order to form new treatments. The herpes virus in reptiles was originally found in certain snake and turtle species (and I think maybe some species of iguana) and has only recently, in the last 5 years or so started to show up in beardies and other lizards. Remember, it was just a few years ago that it was believed the the adeno virus had not affected beardies and they weren't considered susceptable to it, now look, it's becoming more and more wide spread. I can't help but think that much of this is due to large scale breeders and some small scale ones as well who are housing so many animals, and attempting to start new lines and breeding programs and these viruses have crept in and been spread before it was realized what was going on.( Not pointing a finger, just an opinion). If you get one parent that is a carrier of a disease that it has contracted, it may not become ill, but will pass on that virus to it's offspring and sooner or later that dormant virus is going to raise it's ugly head. Or the Adeno Virus, which if I understand correctly is highly contageous, is contracted by a beardie that is exposed to another animal that is carrying it, then passes it to other beardies it comes in contact with through handling, breeding and, with many larger breeders, being housed with other beardies. It's a vicious cycle. And with the gene pool getting ever smaller here, it's going to get worse I'm afraid.
Lance, let me know what your friend finds out, I'm interested also to see what caused his females early death. It reminds me so much of my boy, it breaks my heart. Tell your friend, Chin up-maybe by donating her to science will help beardies in the near future.