To Cindy Sooy:
>My 7 y.o. sprite, Daisy, has swollen lymph nodes, one under her chin, the
>other under her arm.  My vet suspected lymposarcoma, but the lab report
>just came back and it said it was undifferentiated sarcoma....  My vet has
>asked me to post to the FML to ask the vets if they have any ideas on how
>to treat this ferret.  The pathology report also mentioned that the lymph
>nodes were not the primary site for this cancer.
 
The fact that the lab report says undifferentiated sarcoma doesn't mean it
isn't lymphosarcoma, it just means at this point it doesn't look like
lymphosarcoma.  The fact that there are multiple nodes involved suggests to
me it may be a particularly unusual form of lymphosarcoma.
 
How do you treat an undifferentiated sarcoma?  There are several things we
must find out first - 1) what type of sarcoma it is, and 2) where the
primary is, if it didn't arise in the lymph node.  Sarcomas, except for
lymphosarcoma, are very difficult to treat - the best way to treat them is
to cut them out completely.  They respond poorly to chemotherapy, and only
slightly better to radiation.
 
Until the definitive result comes back, I think I would go ahead and treat
as if it was a lymphosarcoma (the most likely).  If it isn't, you won't hurt
anything, and you may get a jump on a serious malignancy.  If it turns out
to be another type of sarcoma, there is unfortunately not a tremendous
amount you can do if it recurs.
 
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP              Chief Pathologist, AccuPath
Dept. of Veterinary Pathology               [log in to unmask]
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1475]