From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2007-11-15 17:59:24 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Depo-Medrol for treating insulinoma?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Are you sure that it is insulinoma rather than another and more
serious pancreatic disease such as lymphoma based in the
pancreas -- or worse -- carcinoma based there. (Carcinoma
in an adrenal tends to be less of a worry than in the pancreas,
but having had a ferret with lymphoma in the pancreas who was
hard to manage and considered lucky to get 9 months, and one
with carcinoma in the pancreas who was far, far harder to manage
and whose 3 month survival had a number of vets amazed we
are unpleasantly familiar with those two diseases there. BTW,
both had sudden onset of symptoms and almost died when the
first symptoms arose, in fact, both needed gentle cheek puff
artificial respiration to muzzle more than once on the way to
emergency care to even make it for that. Luckily, those have been
only two individuals in over over a quarter century with ferrets.)
There is a current study on pancreatic carcinoma treatment w
this med ongoing at Colorado State and led by Dr. Matthew
Johnson. (See lower in my note.)
Does your ferret have a problem w ulcers, leading to a desire to
avoid oral Pred? In humans the side effects are lowered by
using injected Methylprednisolone Acetate (Depo-Medrol) but in
general ferrets do not -- usually -- have many side effect
problems from steroids.
I think that Dr. Michael Dutton studied this application a bit years
ago but will have to search to see if my recollection is correct. No,
I am wrong; he looked at doxorubicin use post-surgically w insulinoma
in a small clinical trial:
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG6831
PubMed brings up nothing on search terms other than
using part of the generic name Methylprednisolone Acetate
Methylprednisolone + beta cell
which bring up 6 that are not completely related
Ditto
Methylprednisolone +ferret
which brings up 3 that are not completely related
Go to:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
for those
CURRENT STUDY:
http://portal.research.colostate.edu/faculty/Details_Dept2.aspx?Keyword=INSULINOMA
Dr. Matthew S. Johnson at Colorado State is studying it for
use when a ferret has beta cell carcinoma, a more serious
and rapidly ravishing disease. They are looking at twice
month injections in a study supported by Pfizer.
A related past vet post:
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/YG5049
A problem w Prednisone rather than Prednisolone is that
if the liver is at all compromised then ferrets have a hard
time converting Prednisone to Prednisolone, which needs
to happen before the body can utilize it.
Some info on drugs in ferrets, including that one:
http://www.ferret-universe.com/health/drugs.asp
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
--- In ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com, "Karen McCabe" <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> On November 5 I brought home a little guy from my vets office. He is
> estimated at 6 years old, adrenal and insulinomic. My vet has him on
> Depo-Medrol, rather then daily pred, for the insulinoma. So far his
> glucose has been ranging from 64 to 116, with most readings in the
> 90's. I'm trying to find info on using Depo-Medrol in ferrets with
> insulinoma but I'm not having much luck. Is anyone here aware of where
> I might info on this? Has anyone else ever used Depo-Medrol in this
> manner?
>
> Any info would be appreciated!
>
> Karen McCabe
> http://www.cinnamonsprite.net
>
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