>I was just wondering how common it is that an adrenal tumour grows in >the abdomen, with the adrenal glands being healthy? I have never read >about this in any of my books or on the Internet... Hi, Ulrike, I don't know the rates for the above situation, but you might find an unusual thing found Wednesday in 3 and 1/2 year old Sherman to be intellectually interesting. (We are waiting for pathology results to find out exactly what is going on. Nothing had been consistent with adrenal neoplasia in him except maybe his fur loss and that could have been just because he has been on Pred a long time for IBD. A high dose Lupron challenge was tried anyway without effect, because it would not hurt him and there was a chance of it helping. Since he was going in for GI biopsies his adrenals got looked at, The right was perfect. In fact, the left adrenal itself looked okay, but he had a huge number of large and leaky blood vessels going to the left adrenal and was actually at risk of bleed-out. So far, we don't know why. A deformity/variation (something we did see once before in our 21 years with ferrets)? A vascular response to feed a malignancy? Something else? It is truly unusual. We are hoping to not get bad news with the pathology results and meanwhile he is healing well despite several ligations and multiple vascular clips. It is possible that his removed adrenal itself is normal but the blood vessels may not be. Anyway, we hope the pathology comes back safe for him and his future. --- Coughing which is persistent, or marked, or otherwise unusual calls not just for a vet appointment but for a chest x-ray. The medical approaches for treatment depend on what is found: pneumonia, cardiomyopathy, asthma, etc. Ferrets do not get "colds". Believe me, research places would love it if they did because they be used to come up with new approaches, but they just do not get rhinoviruses. What they do get include but are not limited to influenza, pneumonia, pleurosy, sometimes allergies, and sinus infections (which they seem to pick up quite easily form our experience -- even more so than influenza). I just recently wound up inadvertently sharing a sinus infection with three ferrets despite precautions. It is VERY common for people to mistake sinus infections and even mild bouts of influenza for colds. (BTW, some FML ferrets are ferrets who were used to help develop influenza vaccines and then adopted out.) NEVER use human meds on your ferrets unless a vet has okayed them BEFOREHAND -- no drops, no sprays, no pills, no whatever. There have been way, way, way too many stories of ferrets who have died or have gotten liver damage this way, usually because someone has equated "over the counter" or "natural" with safe, or hasn't understood that meds expire, or hasn't realized that a meds which works for one condition can be dangerous with other conditions. Too many ferrets die this way and it is totally avoidable. [Posted in FML issue 4270]