My Sammy had surgery for insulinoma before his 5th birthday. They just removed the visible nodules from his pancreas. It didn't seem to help at all, so I managed his disease with diet and then medication. After a year this was no longer effective so we tried surgery again, this time doing a partial pancreatectomy, removing about 1/3 of his pancreas where the nodules seemed to be concentrated. The results were miraculous, his BG levels returned to normal and he never needed meds or a special diet again. He remained insulinoma free for the rest of his life, and passed away a year and a half later of (presumably unrelated) liver failure at about 7.5 years of age. Sammy lived 2.5 years after diagnosis, the last 1.5 years insulinoma-free. So surgery for insulinoma can be curative, even if it's not done early, though earlier might give a better prognosis, and a partial pancreatectomy may tend to give better, longer lasting results. I would think even if there are tumors left behind, reducing the size of the pancreas should reduce the amount of insulin produced and raise BG levels, especially if by chance you get many of the tumors out. But I'm not a vet so I'm just guessing. Also, Ireann mentioned that once they have one cancer they usually have more, insulinoma and adrenal for example. This doesn't mean the cancer has spread from one organ to another. Insulinoma and adrenal are not connected, they just happen to be two age-related diseases ferrets tend to get around the same time of life, like arthritis and Alzheimer's in humans. Most adrenal tumors aren't even cancerous (don't confuse 'tumor' with 'cancer'). And even if adrenal cancer were present and spread to the pancreas, it wouldn't cause insulinoma as only cancerous pancreatic tissue does that. Spreading to another organ doesn't change the type of cancer. Prostate cancer metastasized to bone isn't the same as bone cancer (my Dad died of prostate cancer last year). Again, I'm not a vet so my understanding of this stuff is incomplete, and someone else could probably explain it better. -- John Rosloot, technical analyst Dept. of Computing Services, University of Regina Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML 5762]