TLE, Dr. Weiss' surgical treatments for insulinoma come immediately after diagnosis, not after some period of time with just medical treatment. His belief is that when surgery is delayed until medication is no longer effective, it is too late for surgery to be very effective either. I don't know if this matches your experience or not. And remember, Dr. Weiss' study is not a strict control study, and the decision on surgery or medication was made by the owner. There may have been self-selection in cases where the ferret was already very sick and the owners did not want to put it through surgery, or other factors involved. By the way, I forgot to mention before that Dr. Bruce Williams name is also on the paper. He did all the pathology work. Linda Iroff Raisin Retreat Ferret Shelter Oberlin, OH http://www.oberlin.edu/~liroff/ncfs.html [Posted in FML issue 2490]