From:
sukiecrandall@telocity.com
Date: 2002-07-16 21:36:25 UTC
Subject: RE: Biopsy Result - Please translate for me- Greek to me
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <18758157.1026855385429.JavaMail.root@scandium>
> Is Lymphoma a condition and not necessarily cancer? I have her on > prednisone 2 times a day.
It is a malignancy of the lymph system, but it is possible to get long time frames with Prednisone, so she is not likely to fail on you rapidly with typical lymphoma.
There are more extensive chemo treatments for ferrets in their primes, but they have a low rate of success even then, though they do sometimes get remissions. A friend's ferret got 5 year after the Jeglum Protocol (with regular biopsies and follow-ups at a university vet school and the AMC) but he was among the very unusual few and was a very robust 3 year old when he first became ill.
Pred is good approach, though, in terms of being gentle while increasing both quality and quantitiy of time. Ferret bodies tolerate Pred marvelously. We have had ferrets go as long as a year a half with just Prednisone until the disease became advanced and then we added pain meds to give even more quality time.
In terms of a ferret's life providing a year is like providing ten for a human.