Dear Rebecca: >I inadvertently told some people (and Dr. Williams is one) that Socks had >white spots on his lungs, I think it's his liver. But we aren't going to >worry about that right now. His tumor is hopefully destroyed. I did email >Dr. Williams privately, and will again ask here: when they opened Socks up >his spleen was 2-3 times larger than normal, but during surgery it went >back to it's normal size. His lungs are still not up to par, so he's back >on Clavamox, and also pred for a few days. You probably have nothing to worry about with the liver. This is a commonf inding in ferrets - white spots onthe spleen, and has nothing to do with metastatic tumors. About 20% of ferrets get small localized accumulation of fat within hepatocytes which present as small white dots scattered through the spleen. When most ferrets accumulate fat in their liver - it distributes diffusely, and they can get orange to yellow livers. Some ferrets, though, distribute it in little pockets around the liver. It is not a disease or even a problem. However, I have seen ferrets euthanized on the table for this normal finding, so breathe a sigh of relief! When adrenal tumors metastasize, it is usually one, big ugly tumor taking up a whole lobe of the liver. Regarding the spleen, spleens are actually contractile - they have a lot of smooth muscle in their capsule and in times of stress they can contract. The theory is that this pushes more blood and oxygen-carrying capactiy into the vessels so that the animal can better support it's fight-or-flight response. However, the resting size is the one that it generally assumes, so after he woke up, it probably went back to a larger size (maybe not the previous, as some of the elements tend to get squeezed out during the process.) In ferrets, it really isn't a response of any significance, but it is a well-documented physical response in other species, like horses. With kindest regards, Bruce Williams,d VM [Posted in FML issue 3310]