From:
jcrumpton@berney.com
Date: 2003-12-01 16:27:32 UTC
Subject: pancrectomy advise
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <336573.1070296052193.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
I have a 4.5 year old mail diagnosed with insulinoma. One of the nodules was biopsied to verify. He is recovering well from the exploratory. My vet suggests that I treat with pred rather than partial removal of the pancreas, because the surgery would be invasive and there's no way to know if it will do any good, as the cancer may have spread throughout the pancreas. I don't want to subject him to a traumatic surgery if it will not improve his quality of life, on the other hand...if it will help, I'll do whatever is needed. According to my vet, if I just treat with pred, the lifespan from diagnosis is maybe a year, probably less and if we do the pancrectomy, it's about the same....
Any insight would be very much appreciated.
thanks