very very cool, ferret! thanks for the PM; i've been so busy with the hatchlings and some other new chams that i've hardly had a chance to get on here!
a few random thought/ideas for you and others that are reading this----
-jannb, fascinating pathology, although not surprising. a tumor is a type of cancer, and happily benign in your case. there is a cancer for EVERYTHING and pretty much any "cell line" in the body that i can think of, but so that most people know, cancers are often more comon in cells that rapidly divide in the body, have a high turnover rate, or are more active cells in general. a good example would be mucosal intestinal cells on the inside of the lumen vs. the serosal cells on the outside of the intestine. the inner ones are always digesting, being scraped away by food particles, and re-grow rapidly (gotta digest!), compared to the outer layer of the intestines which is a covering and isn't nearly so active a cell. so when it comes to a chameleons skin, the color-changing cells are obviously
very active (one of the reasons we love our chams so much), so a chromatophoroma which is a typically benign tumor of one of the 4 different types of cells that allow color change is not surprising. and good news generally as tumors go.
-ferret, besides the excellent work that you did and the path report, rely on your exam, history, and knowledge. some of those growths looked warty and caulifower-like from the first photos, and there's not too many other things that look like warts in non-mammalians than papillomas. i don't personally know of any species of animal that isn't susceptitble to a papillomavirus (for others reading this, warts are caused by a virus. not toads. or else my tongue would be all warty. kidding!) anyway, either you're going to get a positive back on the papilloma test, or if not it was missed, because i still say 99% papilloma. and since not all papillomaviruses are the same, some may actually disappear over time, while others may recrudesce (return in the same or different areas of the body).
-re: the Doppler. should you ever find yourself without one, i have had excellent results using a pulse oximeter rectal probe down the esophagus (of any reptile species that i've worked on) so the red light is right at the heart. picks it up perfectly as well, and it's pretty fascinating (though mabe itiitally unnerving) to watch reptile O2 levels typically stay between the 20-40% range throughout anestheisa (in dogs and cats we would start to freak if levels fell consistently below 95% or so). i know an anesthesiologist on a desert island would probably only take a Doppler as their one monitor, but it's just an FYI if you haven't done it before. just make sure the patient is out so they don't bite down on the wire and have a probe lunch free with surgery!
can't wait to see the next report! now the next question is........in this day and age, can they be treated medically rather than surgically? and if they can, is it worth stressing out a grumpy veiled with oral meds? finally, most papillomaviruses tend to be pretty high on the contagion side (although they are usually species-specific), so you may need to change a bit of husbandry accordingly. with that being said, most critteters out there (including us) come into contact with papiillomaviruses constantly, and either our immune system defeats it, ot they remain sub-clinical and never emerge.
dr. o—
I'm going to send them some pictures and let them try some more testing methods of the samples I sent. Maybe we'll find something and maybe we won't.
