Jeff Johnston comments on possibility of lymphoma being caused by a virus.
Would be interested in Dr. Bruce Williams and other vets opinions -
 
When my first owned ferret, Frisky, developed lymphatic cancer, she was
already an oldster.  Her original tumor, about the size of a man's thumb was
removed and had returned larger than before surgery within a week.  Judged
too weak and not a good candidate for chemo, she was put on prednisone to
"ease her" during her last days.  Much to our surprise, she went into
remission and the second tumor vanished within two weeks.  Not quite like
Gary's recipe for Timmy - also in remission - I gave her tons of nutrients,
but I do not think that was what caused the remission.  (Prednisone probably
a factor).  Anyway, after several months in remission, I made the decision
to go ahead with Dr. Tom Kawasaki's chemo-therapy protocol and Frisky flew
through it.  We had one major backset when it was found that she also hand a
basil cell carcinoma of the pancreas.  She also survived that.
 
At the time, I remember Tom's theory that lymphoma was caused by a virus,
and he did blood work on Shadow, also an oldster, and indeed found his wbc's
elevated to near danger level.  It was deemed to keep an eye on it - and I
declined testing others in the household (I did not want to know).  At any
rate, Shadow never did develop lymphatic cancer and he lived to be quite
old.  No others in my household were afflicted - as yet.
 
Frisky remained in remission until she succumbed to ECE during the first
horrible seige of that disease.  By request, she was sent to Dr. Susan
Erdman at M.I.T., then doing research on lymphoma.  For those horrified by
this thought, Frisky was returned to me and laid to rest with other loved
pets gone.
 
I don't know what progress has been made on isolating a virus link.  I do
know, as do many of you, that a virus is the culprit in human Hodgkin's
lymphoma, as well as leukemia.  It is also the culprit in feline leukemia.
But animal research, especially for ferrets, takes lots of money - grants -
and long effort.  My sister, who is a research scientist at the Lombardi
Cancer Research Center at Georgetown Univiversity has worked in this field
for many years.  Isolating a virus, or a gene, takes years of work.
 
As an example - look how hard it has been to isolate the causitive organisim
for ECE!
 
My sister has fed me more information on these subjects than I ever really
wanted to know -- and also on what labs need and look for in research
animals (she does not work with ferrets) - but I will not start up anything
here!  .  Yes - virus can be the culprit in certain cancers, as well as
genetic traits.  But is lymphomo in ferrets caused by a virus?  It probably
will be years before we know.  But, IMHO, I don't think anyone should panic
by the thought of their beloved ferret developing this dread disease.  There
are so many variables - I know many who have never had a case, many who have
had one case, and a few who have had more than one case.  It remains
something that can happen to our ferrets - and it is random.
 
I would be very interested in any of the veternarians here on these pages
bringing all of us up to speed on lymphoma - progress - theory - and
research, if it has not already been commented on by the time this appears.
 
BTW, Frisky remains one of the long term lymphatic cancer survivors - so,
with the exception of juvenile on-set - there is hope.    Cheers, Meg
[Posted in FML issue 1707]