To Stephen Woodcock:
 
>When the vet got inside she found a.) Zeb's spleen was both enlarged
>and dotted with cancerous growths; b.) Zeb's pancreas was cancerous;
>and c.) Zeb had a large mass of cancer (about the size of a marble)
>against his abdominal wall.  Everything came out.  The tests haven't
>come back yet, but she thinks they were benign.
 
    Stephen - let's wait until the pathology report comes back.  It's very
common that benign lesions are inerpreted grossly as "cancerous".  Spleens
very rarely have cancerous growths - small dots are often accumulations of
lymphoid tissue that are simply reactive to GI inflammation.  The abdominal
mass, I'm willing to bet, is probably an adrenal, which even if it is
malignant, probably has a fairly good outlook, and islet cell utmors of the
pancreas also come out very easily.
 
    I'm not in favor of using the term "cancer" when taling about ferret
neoplasms - cancer implies malignancy, when many of the tumors are common
benign tumors that have a very favorable outlook.  Hang in there and wait
for the path report before you get too flustered.
 
Bruce Williams
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[Posted in FML issue 1202]