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]