From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2006-05-12 14:57:03 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] RE: Lymphoscarnoma
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Author wrote:
> I have just had a ferret diagnosed with this nasty disease, and a second one
> suspected of having it as well. What are my options? What should I expect
> as this progresses? Thank you for any guidance you can give me.
> Betty
Okay, the first question has to be HOW was your ferret diagnosed.
That is asked because at one time there was the hypothesis that blood tests could diagnose lymphoma or lymphosarcoma (which get lumped together in most ferret discussions). Sadly, that hypothesis got treated as though it were fact, but actually it turned out to be inaccurate. In ferrets infections can also pull up the white count, in fact, there is even one that pulls up white counts higher than lympho usually does.
Absolutely huge and hard nodes often indicate lympho, but those nodes can also blow up to decent sizes with infections. There have also been situations in which a node was thought to be large but on checking the nodes themselves were fine but they were surrounded by large amounts of fat, causing confusion.
It also pays to know what a ferret's nodes are like normally. Our Meeteetse had what looked like large nodes but simply had ones -- always -- that looked sort of "popped out" and a person needed to know that about her. After the first scare of noticing her nodes she went another approximately 7 or 8 years before she got her final illness.
So, was there just a blood test, and if so what were the results?
What are the symptoms you are seeing?
How is the ferret's behavior?
What are the ages of these ferrets?
Was a nodal aspirate done? Nodal aspirates can be wrong, but usually are useful.
Was the best test done: an actual biopsy which went out to a pathology lab that is used to ferret specimens?
That is not to say that your ferret does not have lympho, but that if the gold standard in testing wasn't done it might not be lympho.
I will give you some references. The first is an excellent article which first appeared in Ferrets Magazine and is by Dr. Bruce Williams, an incredible ferret veterinary pathology expert.
Remember that the article is slightly out of date so following that I will give you links to some past posts on the new Tufts Chemo Protocol.
Here is the very detailed and highly useful magazine article:
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/PDF/Lymphoma_Ferrets.pdf
The new Protocol which can be used instead of Prednisolone or alternatives:
Dr. Jorge Mayer's name got mangled a bit by the inability to carry over a type of punctuation:
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG16750
How a path report can look:
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG16762
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG16615
and
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG16614
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/browse.php?msg=SG17193
and there is more in the archives there as well
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