From:
Bonnie
Date: 2001-09-25 04:37:00 UTC
Subject: Tennessee Panel
Our 3 year old neutered male started exhibiting a lot of aggression
when we adopted a new group. He also started marking around the
house. His urine when he does this is very deep yellow to green.
While we understood these behaviours might be a reaction to the new
ones, as time went by we also began to think there might be an
adrenal problem. The behaviours have lessened a great deal but still
occur occasionally.
He has also in the past few months developed an extremely large
spleen.
While planning to have something done about the spleen, we also
wanted our vet to do the Tennessee Panel just to see if there is any
problem with the adrenal glands so that we could deal with both
problems in one surgery.
Now, we are in Canada, and we have had this panel done on two of our
older ferrets last spring but that was through a ferret specialist.
Our regular vet had her tech call and ask the lab she uses about the
panel. The tech was asked just what the panel tested for. Dr. P.
was going to call the lab today and speak to them herself. She just
left a message for me that she spoke with another animal hospital
here and was told that questions have arisen about the correlation
between what the panel tests for and adrenal disease. Apparently a
vet down in the states is in the process of doing a study to check
the validity of the panel. This other animal hospital has said the
money spent on a panel would be better spent on exploratory surgery.
Now, after all this, my question is ... has anyone heard of a
question about the validity of the panel? My vet is making an effort
to familiarize herself with the issues of my chosen companion animal
and here I am telling her one thing and someone else is telling her
something else. She has said she will go ahead with the panel if we
so wish but I would like to know if there are any questions about
it's usefulness.
Any input from vets would be appreciated.
Bonnie