From:
Pam Sessoms
Date: 2004-11-19 17:15:20 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] RE: 2 questions on Lupron
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <5c46b4a404111909157090706d@mail.gmail.com>
>There is work which shows that some tumors may stay pretty well stable
>and some may actually shrink with Lupron Depot injections.
I have an anecdote about that (sample size two, so no conclusions here
:). I've had two ferrets now that had one adrenal removed surgically
and then months of years later began having symptoms again with
recurrance in the remaining gland. Both of these ferrets were no
longer good surgical candidates at the time of recurrance and were
started on monthly Lupron and daily oral melatonin. I usually start
at 200 mcg of Lupron and adjust up or down according to response and
any returning symptoms but always keep up with montly shots. They
usually wind up on 100 mcg for maintenance.
Abdominal ultrasounds were also done on these ferrets. At the start
of treatment, the adrenal gland was slighly larger than normal as
measured during ultrasound. Many months later, ultrasound was
repeated to look for other problems, and the adrenal was assessed
again and found to have shrunk. In one case (Nana), the gland is now
actually smaller than the normal ferret adrenal gland, according to
the board certified radiologist doing the ultrasound. In the other
case, at necropsy, the adrenal was found to be of normal size but was
not of normal form - it was white and hard and weird-looking, but the
ferret had no clinical signs of adrenal disease at time of death.
So, I've definitely had cases where Lupron+melatonin seems to have
shrunk the adrenal.
-Pam S.