My Sammy had surgery for insulinoma before his 5th birthday. They just
removed the visible nodules from his pancreas. It didn't seem to help
at all, so I managed his disease with diet and then medication. After
a year this was no longer effective so we tried surgery again, this
time doing a partial pancreatectomy, removing about 1/3 of his
pancreas where the nodules seemed to be concentrated. The results were
miraculous, his BG levels returned to normal and he never needed meds
or a special diet again. He remained insulinoma free for the rest of
his life, and passed away a year and a half later of (presumably
unrelated) liver failure at about 7.5 years of age. Sammy lived 2.5
years after diagnosis, the last 1.5 years insulinoma-free.

So surgery for insulinoma can be curative, even if it's not done
early, though earlier might give a better prognosis, and a partial
pancreatectomy may tend to give better, longer lasting results. I would
think even if there are tumors left behind, reducing the size of the
pancreas should reduce the amount of insulin produced and raise BG
levels, especially if by chance you get many of the tumors out. But
I'm not a vet so I'm just guessing.

Also, Ireann mentioned that once they have one cancer they usually have
more, insulinoma and adrenal for example. This doesn't mean the cancer
has spread from one organ to another. Insulinoma and adrenal are not
connected, they just happen to be two age-related diseases ferrets tend
to get around the same time of life, like arthritis and Alzheimer's in
humans. Most adrenal tumors aren't even cancerous (don't confuse
'tumor' with 'cancer'). And even if adrenal cancer were present and
spread to the pancreas, it wouldn't cause insulinoma as only cancerous
pancreatic tissue does that. Spreading to another organ doesn't change
the type of cancer. Prostate cancer metastasized to bone isn't the
same as bone cancer (my Dad died of prostate cancer last year).

Again, I'm not a vet so my understanding of this stuff is incomplete,
and someone else could probably explain it better.

--
John Rosloot, technical analyst
Dept. of Computing Services, University of Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
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[Posted in FML 5762]