>A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a raised black blister looking thing on
>a recently adopted male ferret of mine, on his body near his "underarm"
>area.  It was a little bigger than the diameter of a pencil, I guess.
>I've been keeping an eye on it, and it eventually broke, and formed a
>scab.  Just recently, it's gotten much smaller, and appears to be healing.
>I've never seen anything like this.  Does anyone know what it could be?
 
Boy, a picture of this would be helpful (always consider taking pictures -
they are indeed worth a thousand words in the field of electronic
consultation) -
 
Chances are that we are dealing with a skin tumor here.  Black blisters
generally fall into one of two groups - vascular tumors or apocrine cysts.
Vascular tumors (hemangiomas and hemangiosarcoma) are not uncommon in
ferrets.  The black color arises because the tumor is composed of
proliferating vessels.  I am actually currently working on a paper on these
tumors in ferrets at the moment.  They generally are benign, and even the
malignant ones, the hemangiosarcomas, rarely metastasize, and carry a good
prognosis after surgical removal.
 
The other group, the apocrine cysts, are benign cysts of scent glands in
ferrets.  Surgery is also curative here.
 
Many skin tumors get very ulcerated, may bleed, and go through cycles of
looking awful, and then "healing", but they never really go away.  My
suggestion here is to have your vet remove it and send it off to see what
it is.  I would be happy to look at it for you at no charge, since it may
fit in nicely with a little research I am doing right now.
 
with kindest regards,
 
Bruce Williams, DVM
 
Bruce H. Williams, DVM, DACVP
Chairman, AFIP Dept. of Telemedicine
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
Washington, DC 20306-6000
(202) 782-2392
 
Ipsa scientia potestas est.
[Posted in FML issue 3183]