tumors in gerbils

Question
My gerbil Rodney has what the vet describes as a tumor on his tummy. Its where his scent line is. We dont want to risk having him put under anasethic to remove especially with no certantity that it will clear it. So he is having antibiotics now and appears all ok,eating well,chewing,playing. Do you know of anything else that might help him untill he is nearing his time?

Answer
Hi Jill

I've had three gerbils who all developed tumours in this area.  We tried treating them but the tumours kept growing.  For the first gerbil my vet removed the tumour, but a few weeks later another one appeared.  In the end he did drastic surgery and removed the whole of the glandular skin that covered his tummy.  When his two brothers developed tumours in the same area, my vet immediately did this 'tummy tuck' and removed all the glandular skin over the tummy.  

The dangers of surgery are firstly, the anaesthetic and the age/condition of the gerbils must be taken into account.  Secondly, if the vet carries out this type of surgery, it is vital the gerbil doesn't eat the stiches - if they do and the wound keeps reopening it can infect.  Therefore my vet did internal stitches as well as external ones, so that providing the gerbil got through the first few days or so if they did start nibbling after that, then they shouldn't do serious damage.

This area of skin on their tummy is glandular and attracts tumours.  They are superficial tumours.  Having experienced this with my gerbils, treatment/removal of just one tumour doesn't appear to work.  The only way to be sure they are gone is the total removal of skin.

In all these cases the gerbils were around 1 year old and recovered immediately from the surgery - in fact later that evening they all were fine (the biggest problem I had was making sure they didn't remove each other's stiches!  and they all had lovely trim waistlines!)  They went on the live a full life and died of other causes.

I know this may not be the answer you were hoping for, but I wanted you to know that surgery to remove the entire glandular skin on this area can be successful but there are always going to be risks with any surgery.

Good luck -hope it works out.