Hi, I live in Louisiana and I have six ferrets.  As of last Saturday I had
seven, but early Sat. morn I woke to my little Goo girl in serious distress.
Of course it was 4 a.m. and our ER clinic had no doctor(he had gone home).
I had to wait until my boss got home so he could meet me at work to put her
to sleep.  Anyway I sent her little body to the LSU vet school where they
are performing a full autopsy.  I suspected an insulinoma because she was
having periodic seizures and was put on a prednisone solution.  I will give
the full scenario for you all when I get the results.  I have recieved a
prelim report which found no outward tumors on the pancreas but suspected
multifocal hepatitis instead!!  I am just waiting for the pathology reports
to come in.  I just want to say, for people who have lost their babies to an
illness, Please think twice about an autopsy.  It was very painful for me to
decide but in the long run, the more we find out about their illnesses the
more we can help them and maybe we will be able to catch some of these
illnesses before they have progressed to far!
 
One more thing, a comment about insulinoma surgery; A statement from the AM
VET MED ASSOC, "Surgical exploratory with pancreatic tumor resection is
commonly advocated as the treatment of choice for insulinomas.  Complete
surgical excision of the tumor in these ferrets resulted in a temporary
resolution of clinical signs, BUT it did not improve overall survival times.
Histopathologic confirmation is necessary for a definitive diagnosis of beta
cell tumor, but the expense and risk of surgery may not be warranted in all
cases."  Also from Ferrets, Rabbits and Rodents; "Insulinomas in ferrets are
usually malignant, as they are in dogs.  We currently recommend surgical
therapy for ferrets younger than 6 years of age or for those suspected of
having concurrent adrenal disease.  Surgical therapy is usually not curative
but may stop or slow progression of the insulinoma.  In a recent study, the
mean survival time of 49 ferrets undergoing surgical excision of tumor
nodules was 462 days (range, 14-1207 days).
 
Sorry for the length and in memory of Figaro,Emm,Sebastian and Goo.  Odie,
Atimer, Renfield, PooPoo, Sprocket and Otis all LOVE AND MISS YOU!!!!!
[Posted in FML issue 2062]