Dear Tanya:
 
>I took Raider my 2.5 y/o male to the vet today for what I thought might
>just be an upper respiratory infection.  Turns out his lungs are clear,
>but he has an enlarged spleen.  The possibilities are lymphoma (cancer)
>or an infection causing the spleen to enlarge.  Does anyone have any
>experience with enlarged spleens?  What was your diagnosis?  I am so
>worried about this gorgeous boy of mine.
 
Relax, take a breath.  Splenomegaly is a very common finding in ferrets and
over 95% of cases are not a tumor at all, but a stereotypical response to
chronic inflammatin in the body.  Helicobacter is a big cause, ECE is a big
cause, any chronic inflammatiory disease anywhere in the body often causes
the spleen to enlarge.  The enlargement is due to the production of
immature red and white blood cells in response to circulating chemicals in
the body which are associated with inflammation.
 
The fastest way to get a read is to have your vet do a quick aspirate of
the spleen and send it off for examination.  Quick, essentially painless,
and gives diagnostic information quickly.  If it comes back as
extramedullary hematopoiesis, or the production of immature red and white
blood cells, then we either simply wait it out to see if it goes down in
size, or if it is of a size that it can possibly rupture - which can be a
life-threatening situation - then we take it out.
 
All ferret owners face this problem at one time or another, and most of
the time, everything turns out just fine.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, dVM
[Posted in FML issue 3273]