From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2007-06-15 02:22:07 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: possible juvenile lymphoma?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
The difference is between something being indicative of several possibilities vs. being
diagnostic specifically for just one of those possibilities.
A blood test can point to several possibilities including lymphoma, and other factors can
help narrow that but that differs from being specifically diagnostic of one thing.
The sole way to firmly diagnose lymphoma from specimens is to have pathology done on
the tissue. not a blood test and not just a necropsy.
Some refs:
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/PDF/Lymphoma_Ferrets.pdf
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/lsa.html
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/Clin_Path/ClinPath.html
and there are many more to also help,including ones in the archives.
I am not saying that your ferret did not have lymphoma. What I am saying is that the high
count is caused by several things (including lymphoma but not limited to lymphoma), so
each and every one of those illnesses is possible with such blood results, making the
blood test indicative of several possibilities rather than diagnostic of just one. (On the
other hand, the only thing known so far to really blow the end off the scale is DIM.)
BTW, before people figured this out at least some "spontaneous remissions" were actually
infections misdiagnosed as lymphoma until people knew better and looked more closely.
In some cases they got very lucky since with some infections you want to avoid steroids.
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