I asked a few ferret vet experts if what was seen in this person might also happen in ferrets and learned that Dr. Robert Wagner has encountered some ferrets whose low blood sugar responded to GnRH agonists. Here is what i had asked them: Is there a chance that any of the male ferrets w adrenal disease and related prostatic disease who appear to also have insulinoma might instead have a process like this? But now the question becomes whether levels of IGF II are off in such ferrets. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25109918 Orv Hetil. 2014 Aug 1;155(33):1319-24. doi: 10.1556/OH.2014.29981. [Insulin-like growth factor-II secreting prostate tumour causing severe hypoglycaemi]. [Article in Hungarian] Vadasz J1, Barta G1, Krasznai G2, Ludger F3, Zalatnai A4. Abstractin English, Hungarian The authors present a case of an 82-year-old male patient who presented with frequent hypoglycaemia. Four years prior to the current evaluation the patient had been diagnosed with prostate carcinoma; however, he refused surgical treatment. Initial diagnostic tests indicated organic hypoglycaemia with low serum insulin levels. Insulinoma was excluded and further laboratory tests showed reduced serum insulin-like growth factor-II and normal serum chromogranin A levels as well as normal hypophysis and peripheral hormone values. The authors hypothesised that the severe hypoglycaemia might be the consequence of synthesis and secretion of insulin-like growth factor-II (or its prohormone) by the previously diagnosed prostate tumour. Insulin-like growth factor-II and its prohormone directly increases glucose uptake of the tumour, muscle and adipose tissue, decreases glucose release from the liver and downregulates insulin synthesis due to inhibition of the pancreatic beta cells. The patient required continuous intravenous glucose substitution initially with 5%, subsequently with 20% glucose infusion. Administration of other agents resulted only in temporary improvement. Prostatectomy was again considered but then excluded because of the recurrent hypoglycaemia and the poor general condition of the patient. Hypoglycaemia was finally controlled with glucose and diazoxide therapy, but no improvement in the general condition of the patients was observed and the patient deceased. Immunohistochemistry of the prostate sections showed a carcinoma with strong insulin-like growth factor-II staining, suggesting that insulin-like growth factor-II-secreting prostate tumour caused the severe hypoglycaemia. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(33), 1319-1324. KEYWORDS: insulin like growth factor-II (IGF-II); inzulinszeru novekedesi faktor-2 (IGF-2); nem szigetsejttumor okozta hypoglykaemia; non-islet cell tumor hypoglycaemia; prostate cancer; prosztatacarcinoma PMID: 25109918 [PubMed in progress] [Posted in FML 8173]