Message Number: SG2464 | New FHL Archives Search
From: ferretsonly@hotmail.com
Date: 2002-12-03 05:27:14 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Liver disease
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <24371025.1038893234223.JavaMail.root@scandium>

> Still, it can be over-diagnosed based upon tests,

Or under-diagnosed based on tests.

One of my ferrets was not doing well and had bloodwork done in January. I don't have the results here but nothing led my highly-skilled vet to believe anything was wrong with his liver. We treated him based on what the bloodwork. In April, the ferret nose-dived so we repeated the bloodwork. The liver values were again within normal ranges. Based on the results, my vet did not believe that my ferret was in danger.

My ferret died that evening so I had a necropsy performed. The diagnosis was cirrhosis of the liver (from a nationally recognized ferret pathologist). I am told that his liver was in such bad shape that it couldn't produce sufficient quantities of abnormal (enzymes?) to make the test results show the problem.

Has anyone heard of this sort of skewed results? I hadn't.

-Carla