From:
Bruce Williams, DVM
Date: 2001-06-03 01:35:00 UTC
Subject: Re: elevated calcium
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "Teena Austin" <austin@a...> wrote:
> Hello Dr. Williams,
>
> The ferret Dr. Garro is referring to is mine; see my post #3976 for
> background on symptoms and onset.
>
> In addition to calcium of 16.2 as previously mentioned, other
> findings out of the reference range in the chemistry panel were:
> AST 223 (46-118 normal)
> CK 3443 (98-564)
> Albumin 3.2 (3.4-4.8)
> Total Protein 6.6 (4.3-6.0)
> Globulin 3.4 (0.2-2.4)
> BUN 68 (10-45)
> Cholesterol 273 (96-249)
> Glucose 97 (120-144)
> Potassium 3.1 (3.9-5.5)
>
> CBC results out of ranges were:
> WBC 7.1 (3.5-7.0)
> Neutrophil Seg 72 (31-57)
> Eosinophil 2 (0-1)
>
> If this suggests anything to you other than lymphosarcoma, I'd be
> interested to know. The onset seemed so sudden and she has
> deteriorated so rapidly...
>
> Thanks,
>
> Teena Austin
>
>
Dear Teena -
I am sorry to hear of Liz's passing (I received email from Dr. Garro.)
I am hopeful that some tissues were saved - Dr. Garro said that he
did impression smears of lymph nodes, and perhaps he was able to save
the entire nodes - I would be more than happy to look at the nodes to
confirm the diagnosis of lymphoma.
The bloodwork that you posted above is not really all that bad - I
would expect that the renal function would be worse in such as
hypercalcemic animal. The globulins are elevated and the albumin is
a bit low, suggesting some chornic inflamamtion of the GI tract.
Hypercalcemia of malignancy is certainly well-documented in the dog
and to the lesser extend in the cat, but I think this may be the
first case that I have seen in a ferret. Unfortunately, it looks as
if we will never definitively prove it, as at this point, we simply
have two concurrent syndromes - a veryhigh calcium, and a lymphoma.
The only way to truly prove that the two are related is to be able to
remove the tumor and see the calcium go back to normal. But it
certainly looks suspicious enough on the face of it to at least
consider it presumptive.
Once again, I am sorry for your loss.
With kindest regards,
Bruce H. Williams, DVM, DACVP
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