<http://www.smartgroups.com/message/readmessage.cfm? gid=1423922&messageid=16198&startid=16206> Sorry to hear about the loss of your pet. Can ferrets get sarcomas after an injection? Yes, Very, Very rarely they can. I had a case report of a vaccine injection site sarcoma in a pet ferret published in JAVMA (213:955) back in 1998. Since then I have not seen one. There was a second paper published from the vets at the U of Georgia also describing vaccine site sarcomas in pet ferrets. Ferrets can also get fibrosarcomas that have nothing to do with a vaccine or injection. In cats there has been a lot of research on this very topic. Some cats are genetically prone to sarcomas after an injection (vaccines and several other products) produces inflammation under the skin. The inflammation eventually leads to tumor formation. Researchers at Colorado State's vet school also produced a sarcoma with just the needle going thru the cat's skin without an injection. The needle brought a small amount of hair under the skin which caused the inflammation. This same problem has also been documented in some lab animals (rodents). Unfortunately there is no way of knowing for sure if his tumor was produced by previous injections (ie vaccines, antibiotics, SQ fluids, melatonin implant) or if it was a fibrosarcoma that had nothing to do with an injection without a lot of specific testing. Again sorry to hear about your loss, Jerry Murray, DVM --- Carried to the FML by Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List co-moderator http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives fan http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ replacing http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress advisor http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5096]