Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

Rajat — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:14:00 GMT

Sorry to hear that Nikki sounds like Marie K was right

My condolences to your nurse...

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

nikki — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:44:53 GMT

unfortunately he took a turn for the worse tonight and was put to sleep.

Thanks for the help.

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

Marie Kubiak — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 21:09:00 GMT

send me a message if you do want the Tufts chemo protocol. I agree with Rajat that there is a suspicious soft tissue area in front of the heart and mediastinal lymphoma would be a big differential. Sounds like a possible concurrent CHF though which worsens prognosis significantly.

Marie

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

nikki — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:55:50 GMT

unfortunately cant post echo clips as the ultrasound machine isn't that clever. I can print them but I dont have a camera so cant post photos of them. We have sent a sample of the fluid to Idexx to confirm the diagnosis and sent the ferret home for the weekend with pred and frusemide. Fingers crossed he'll have a bit of time.

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

Rajat — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:57:54 GMT

Hi folks

The references I have state LA mean in ferrets to be around 0.7cm so by your measurements this would be enlarged for your ferret putting CHF top of the list.

Having said that I think I see a cranial thoracic mass with tracheal elevation.

Was the RA enlarged too? Any chance of seeing echo clips?

Your cytology obv suggestive of lymphoma but worth getting it confirmed externally - don't know if ferrets do the same as dogs and cats and try to confuse us with their mesothelial cells so worth a pathologist looking at it too

I think the prognosis is very variable from some recent reading I did on ferrets with both aggressive and slow growing lymphomas around and no real info on survival times with chemo vs preds in ferrets. Did find a chemo protocol for use with NO IV injections from Tufts I think.

Many do well on preds alone - I have never given a ferret chemo tho have diagnosed lymphoma in 2 now.

I am sure people with more cardiac and ferret (and ferret cardiac!) experience will be along soon to give you more accurate/insightful advice!

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

nikki — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:15:00 GMT

i work in same practice as pjmontgo :)

no blds yet - ferret too dyspnoeic conscious and not entirely stable under GA so just drained fluid and woke him up.

just looked at a smear under the microscope and it's hooching with lymphocytes of varying sizes so guess we've got a dx.

any ideas what sort of prognosis we're looking at?

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

Robin Grimmer — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:46:58 GMT

Have you run bloods to check for other causes eg hypoalbuminaemia, liver disease?

Re: Ferret with ascites and pleural effusion

pjmontgo — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:09:31 GMT

xray