Although I have no experience wwith squamous cell carcinoma in ferrets,
I had done some casual research on it since one of my ferrets had some
gingival overgrowth that I feared might be SCC. I found nothing about
cryosurgery, etc. The standard procedure for SCC involves wide-margin
excision, often including removal of part of the jaw/bone. SCC tumors
are agressive and commonly spread before a lesion is even noticed.
Radiation and/or chemo seem to be ineffective on oral SCC. From what
I've read surgery may extend the ferret's life by about 6 months.

I will say that ferrets do not need vitamin D - in fact, it's easy to
give them too much. I recommend going to a holistic ferret vet for
supportive therapies since we may do more harm than good if we treat
self-treat our ferrets without proper guidance.

There are some herbal type treatments that have proven effective
against cancers in some ferrets. A number of these remedies are based
upon the Hoxsey formula, which was studied and deemed potentially
effective at the Mayo clinic.

If you opt in favor of traditional treatments, I recommend consulting
with a holistic/integrative vet for supportive supplements anayway.
If you choose to work with two different vets, the vets must know the
details of each treatment. Depending upon the treatments, both vets
may need to collaborate in order to provide a sound treatment plan
For example, somple nutritional supplements such as fish oil and
nutritional greens would not require collaboration. But your primary
care vet will need to know what/how much, etc. is being added to
the diet. In contrast, an herbal cancer treatment would need to be
carefully managed if it were to be coupled with surgery. For this type
of approach (which may NOT be feasible) the two vets must be working
together.

I tend to rely on traditional medicine. However, I have used
alternative approahes, sometimes coupled with traditional therapies.
I've been amazed at the success rate I've seen with the alternative
treatments. Since I tend to be a skeptic, I place greater confidence in
"tried aand true" medicines that are of known/controlled potencies. But
I have to admit that I have witnessed some amazing healing (even with
lymphoma) using nutritional support guided by a good holistic vet.

-jennifer

[Posted in FML 6537]