Laryssa wrote:
>I'm confused. Did Sukie or someone else find an article that says
>unaltered ferrets get adrenal disease?
>
>I was reading the Exotic Vet magazine and there was an article that
>said most often, neutering either after birth or after a year, it
>made no difference - ferrets would often get adrenal disease. But
>ferrets that were never altered, basically didn't get it.

Look in the FHL Archives and you will find vets who treated such
ferrets. I seem to recall at least one also mentioning that in the FML
years ago, too. I strongly recall conversations in the FML years ago
on older whole ferrets with adrenal disease.

I don't have time for a comprehensive search but was able to find one
such post quickly enough:

http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG7667

>In a message dated 01/30/04 10:54:09 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes: The cases of whole
>ferrets with adrenal neoplasia I've heard of have been older than 5
>years old (but so are most cases of adrenal neoplasia in neutered
>ferrets).
>
>I've seen a case of a two and a half year old intact female with both
>adrenal glands diseased.
>
>Dr. Ruth

So, rare, but certainly not impossible...

Sometimes there are strange goofs that get missed in books or articles
and then they can be accidently perpetuated. For example, one recent
article on adrenal disease quoted a section in a book which alleged
that there had been two adrenal disease rate studies done in the U.S.,
BUT the numbers given were off the wall, plus I'd never run into any
such a study -- not even one. So, after finding out who wrote that
section of the book (someone not in the U.S., BTW, but someone I know)
I asked where he had that data from and he mentioned someone else I
know well enough, the very thorough and careful Dr. Mark Finkler, so i
asked him about the claim. He had no idea why anyone would think he'd
ever said such a thing because no such studies exist, let alone two of
them on different years, AND the rates mentioned were far higher than
anything he's personally encountered. Contacted again, the person who
first put that into a book found that he could not at that point locate
any such records in his notes and was surprised that his recollection
of the source he asserted was definitely wrong. So, while journal
articles are sometimes rigorous (and at times even stressfully so)
other times the people asked to review articles before publication can
be too lax. Luckily, usually there is a happy medium, with accuracy
accompanying openness.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 6168]