A couple of weeks ago, I posted a message (to Bruce Williams) about my
7 1/2 yo ferret, Mandy, who has insulinoma.  The question was whether to
persue surgery or not, and he suggested I go for it depending on:
condition of ferret to begin with and if I trusted my vet's surgical skills.
 
Mandy had surgery on Monday and my vet found a 1 cm nodule that luckily
just "popped" out when he removed it.  He didn't see any evidence of any
other tumors and the remaining pancreas looked good (he also looked around
at other organs - adrenals specifically - and they looked fine).  Not wanting
to bombard Dr Williams with another islet cell tumor, I had the histotechs
where I work (Pathology U/R) make some slides for them and I took them to
Dr Ray Baggs, the Vet Pathologist at the U/R.
 
Being a pathologist he thought it was a *beautiful* tumor! He said my vet
did an excellent piece of surgical work and the tumor has definite borders
and it appears he got it all.  The fact that it just "popped" out is
encouraging also.
 
He showed it to me under the scope and I learned something yesterday:  (Bruce,
if I get this wrong PLEASE correct me) In my mind I always visualized islet
cells as being separate from the pancreas and sort of "sitting" on top of
the pancreas in a little group.  Well, they are dispersed throughout the
pancreas and more or less IN the pancreas as a part of the pancreas - normally
anyway.  When one of these things starts growing out of control, that's
when it becomes a tumor.  Mandy's tumor looked like one big giant normal
islet cell - just significantly larger.
 
Now I understand what everyone is talking about when they say that outcome
depends on whether it is one big tumor or whether there are many teeny
tiny tumors all over the place.
 
My other confusion is the term "cancer."  Dr. Baggs said this tumor is
benign.  Yet I also thought of insulinoma as "cancer" and cancer is bad.
Dr Baggs said the term "cancer" is often used incorrectly.  Cancer is a
tumor that can be either benign or malignant - malignant is bad cancer.
 
I THINK THAT"S WHAT HE SAID - BRUCE, PLEASE HELP ME HERE IF I SCREWED UP.
(I type human autopsy reports - I'm not a technican so I know the words
and how to spell them, but not necessarily what they all mean!)
 
If there are numerous tumors scattered throughout, it's not just tumor
that you take out but the pancreas itself.  Taking out too much pancreas
can be really harmful to the ferret.  But how can you tell by looking at
a slide if it has metastasized or not?  That's one question I didn't ask
Dr. Baggs - Bruce, I defer this one to YOU!
 
Debbie Riccio
WNYFLFA
[Posted in FML issue 1159]