CLL for the birds...too?

[Guest guest]

I was reading PUBMED today and came across this interesting study...Long-term

treatment of CLL in a green-winged Macaw

quote:

A 32-year-old green-winged macaw (Ara chloroptera) was diagnosed with chronic

lymphocytic leukemia based on progressive lymphocytosis and the presence of a

monomorphic population of well-differentiated lymphocytes in the bone marrow of

a clinically normal bird.

Chemotherapy was initiated because of rapidly increasing peripheral lymphocyte

counts. In addition to oral prednisone (1 mg/kg once daily), oral chlorambucil

(1 mg/kg twice weekly) was initiated but was discontinued after 6 weeks because

of thrombocytopenia.

The leukocyte count was stabilized for 29 weeks with the concurrent use of oral

cyclophosphamide (5 mg/kg 4 d/wk) and daily prednisone, and the bird exhibited a

good quality of life. The bird died shortly after the chemotherapy was

inadvertently discontinued. The neoplastic cells from this macaw stained

positive for CD-3 antibody and negative for Bla.36, suggesting the leukemia was

of T-cell origin.

This is the first report of long-term treatment of a macaw with cyclophosphamide

and documents thrombocytopenia in a macaw secondary to chlorambucil treatment.

end quote:

Read more here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21302764

You never know...

~chris