From:
"Roger Vaughn"
Date: 2003-12-30 19:03:43 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] RE: Juvenile Lymphoma--Bone Marrow?
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <38650.161.254.5.251.1072811023.squirrel@mail.seaconinc.com>
I'm not a vet, but I wanted to share my experiences on this. These
are the answers as I understand them, but a vet may have different (or
contrary) insight.
This doesn't sound like juvenile lymphoma to me. In the case of my
little guy, and the other cases I have heard of, JL was extremely
fast, so fast that you can see the ferret declining visibly by the
day. Generally these ferrets have a life expectancy of days once
diagnosed, and that only with supportive meds. My Bear lasted two
weeks on high doses of prednisone after being diagnosed with JL, and
that seems to be about typical.
If your ferret is still alive and not worsening after 10 days, I would
tend to think that JL is not the problem.
Second, in my limited experience, lymphosarcoma (LSA) of the bone
marrow tends to destroy the blood-producing cells, so in an affected
ferret you should see persistent aplastic anemia and/or low platelet
counts. This anemia may appear regenerative - the blood will be
composed of increasingly young cells as the remaining marrow tries to
repair the damage, but there are fewer and fewer marrow cells left to
do the job.
The high white cell count doesn't necessarily indicate lymphoma. More
often it indicates a serious systemic infection, which the high fevers
your ferrets are experiencing also point to. I would tend to suspect
a severe infection in your cases. Since the antibiotics don't seem to
be working though, you might consider a viral attack as well. (Sukie,
wasn't Chiclet's case similar to this description?)
Just this October I lost a ferret to lymphosarcoma of the bone marrow.
His white cell count was normal. His only indicators were the anemia
and platelet depletion. Bone marrow biopsy was diagnostic for this,
though. Ultimately he died of the acute anemia caused by the
destruction of his bone marrow by the LSA.
Even if your young ferrets do not have JL, adult (lymphocytic)
lymphoma is still a possibility, though much less likely at this age.
A bone marrow biopsy will give you a positive indication for LSA of
the marrow, but won't give you a negative indication of other
lymphomas, as your vet mentioned. A more reliable indicator, and the
one most often used, is a lymph node biopsy, either by fine-needle
aspiration or by surgery. If you have the funds, you might consider a
needle biopsy of both a node and bone marrow. Note that a negative
biopsy on a lymph node still isn't a perfect indicator, since your vet
may have chanced to biopsy an unaffected node while other nodes are
affected. Lymphoma can be hard to diagnose until the later stages
since it can take so many forms and affect so many different sites.
Again, I'm not a vet, and this info is based solely on my limited
experience and reading. Please confirm with your vets before making
any decisions based on this.
I wish you the best of luck with your kids. It sounds like you have a
tough fight on your hands.
roger