From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2005-03-03 20:39:58 UTC
Subject: RE: Pred and Insolinoma and longevity
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <6478052.1109882398507.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
We haven't had many insulinoma ones ourselves (about a 20% rate when the ones with lymphoma or carcinoma in the pancreas are also thrown in).
All of the few here with insulinoma (not the one with lymphoma in her pancreas and not the one with carcinoma in her pancreas) had surgery. One, a late rescue, turned out to have her tumor in an inoperable area.
We had some cured by surgery but not all.
There is a lot of variation among ferrets with insulinoma, I think. Some go for a long time with very careful care, and some don't thrive no matter what is tried.
Surgical ability matters a LOT in relation to outcome among the considerations to take into account from our experience.
The recovery period had been short for all of ours except 2: a very elderly one who also had other health concerns; she went diabetic very short term after surgery but then bounced back fine within days, and an adult rescue who developed a rare complication of insulinoma, Complete A/V Heart Node Block. Without the surgery she had she would not have lasted the 9 or so months she did with her heart care, but she is the one whose tumor was partly in an inoperable place so removing all of it was never an option.
Insulinoma is something which doesn't have a clear-cut way to go about it. The stats are very much in favor of surgery, but not all ferrets read the stats, and not all vets can find the tiny sand like tumors which need to be found, and not being able to do that reduces surgical success, plus not all show symptoms early enough for great surigcal success from our experience, so some who have had surgery later need meds. If managing with meds then a person has to read up on med types, timing, diet, regular testing, how to jump for a blood sugar drop, dosing, increasing doses, etc. Just knowing those things beforehand is a great way to increase the survival time.