>One of the local vets I use is doing a spleen removal on an older ferret
>Monday morning.  Not one of my ferrets, I am donating one of my guys as a
>blood donor just in case the need arises.
>
>What is the injection that can be done to the spleen to make it shrink
>up so there is not as much blood loss?  If someone could let me know, so
>I can let the vet know, I'd appreciate it.
 
Historically, epinephrine has been used in domestic animals to cause
splenic contraction, but it is probably not recommended, especially around
the time of surgery.  There is a small possibility that a peri- anethestic
dose of epinephrine may actually precipitate an arrhythmia, and probably
is is not warranted.
 
You did not mention whether the animal is anemic or not - in animals
which are not anemic, the likelihood of significant blood loss is minimal,
and the post-surgical packed cell volume will probably approximate the
pre-surgical (accounting for fluid administered intravenously during the
operation of course.)
 
Remember that the blood contained in the spleen generally is not
represented in a packed cell volume, and much of the actual cellular
contents of enlarged spleens is immature erythrocytes, leukocytes, and
megakaryocytes, and do not contribute to the contents of peripheral blood
in any fashion.
 
The most likely case in which your ferrets service would be needed is in
the unlikely occurrence of intra-operative hemorrhage.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM
 
 
And two non-vets went slightly off-topic (since an injection had been
specifically asked about) and mentioned a manual technique which
seems to have been commonly in use, and which I have included here to
give non-vets a feel for part of the operation IF this technique is
still in use often:
 
When our Sidney has his spleen out about 10 years ago, our vet told
us he did a similar thing.  He was worried that Sid wouldn't survive
the surgery due to the huge spleen and the amount of blood that would
be lost. After surgery he said they he had squeezed (massaged?) the
spleen to get as much blood back into the body as possible before
removal.
 
That didn't sound like something one could really do, but what do I
know.  Sidney recovered quickly, by the way.
 
mike
 
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., Sukie Crandall <sukiecrandall@t...>
wrote:
>A vet who was the best surgical vet we've ever had used to pat and
>massage them to return as much blood to the body beforehand as a
>standard procedure when one needed to come out...
[Posted in FML issue 3556]