From:
sukiec@optonline.com
Date: 2003-01-11 20:03:03 UTC
Subject: RE: Lympho News
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <18831052.1042315383846.JavaMail.root@scandium>
I think that the largest single thing to remember is that blood tests are NOT diagnostic for lympho. Thet hypothesis has been carefully tested (by someone who seemed strongly to expect that it would turn out to be true, actually, so it is more to her credit that she was willing to acept that her hopeful hypothesis was incorrect -- very professional -- and the hypothesis was not a valid hypothesis. A biopsy MUST be done to know if there if there is lymphoma.
In the U.S. there used to be a lot of "miraculous recoveries" from lymphoma with all sorts of things credited before it was realized that the ferrets who hadn't been biopsied may have simply gotten through bad systemic infections and nothing more.
Is there reason to check this latest approach to see if it has promise? Sure. One logical thing would be for the vet claiming these preliminary results to now begin to be sure to do biopsies on her future ones to find out if and when she is actually looking at cases of lympho instead of infections.