>I was wondering if anyone on here has heard of a ferret who died from
>cancer of the bile duct?  I have not received the pathology report from
>my ferret's necropsy yet (he died Monday morning, necropsy prefomred
>immediately after).  She said that she'd never heard of this in a ferret
>but has seen it in cats and dogs.
>
>Anyway, I had to know what went wrong and couldn't just accept, "it might
>have been cancer".  She did his necropsy within 20 minutes of his death.
>
>She found that his bile duct (I may have misheard her now that I think
>about it...do ferrets have a "bowel" duct?)...it was thickened and
>appeared to be full of cancer.  She never saw this before and sent it
>out for pathology to confirm.
>
>She also found that his stomach was riddled with ulcers - eaten clear
>through his stomach wall.
>
>She and the vet she consulted with have never seen bile (or bowel?) duct
>cancer in ferrets and I was wondering if anyone on here has?  Are his
>symtoms at time of death conclusive with something like this?
 
Dear X:
 
Let's not jump on cancer of the bile ducts until the report comes back.
While biliary tumors (cholangiocarcinoma and cholangiomas - malignant and
benign respectively) do exist in ferrets, they are extremely rare.  As a
matter of fact, tonight, I am proofing a paper on liver tumors in ferrets
for presentation at the American College of Vet Pathologist's meeting next
month.
 
Biliary tract neoplasms are exceedingly rare in ferrets - I have 5 in my
collection of 3000 cases - you do the math.  In this archive, 1.8% of
cases were neoplasms involving the liver - which is pretty low.  Of these,
lymphoma was most common, and metastatic adrenal carcinoma came in second.
 
Tumors of the liver rarely show premonitory signs, such as liver failure.
If noticed antemortem, they generally present as a large mass.  Only three
primary liver tumors - tumors of either the hepatocytes (liver cells) or
biliary tree- out of 18 in the study showed evidence of liver failure
prior to necropsy.  So most are silent - don't feel as if you missed some
big tip-off - there usually isn't one.
 
On gross inspection, many tumors look alike, so this is one best left to
the pathologist's microscope.  Any chance we took pictures of the
necropsy?
 
Regarding the ulcers - this might have been the precipitating factor for
your ferret's rapid demise.  Ferrets with any systemic illness may develop
ulcers as a result of stress, so the development in this case is probably
to be expected.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
[Posted in FML issue 3602]