Aglepristone for open pyometra?

[sallyforth]

Hi, everyone.

I just started fostering a 15 month old female hybrid dwarf hamster named Skipper. When I went to meet her, we noticed a little bleeding that seemed to be coming from the reproductive tract. The woman who runs the hamster rescue suspected open pyometra, so we made a vet appointment. The vet couldn't say for sure that it's pyometra, but it's definitely a possibility.

Skipper is currently on SMT/TMS and Meloxicam, and we have a follow-up scheduled for Friday. The vet has already suggested surgery, but after talking about it with the rescue, we're thinking we might just make Skipper as comfortable as possible and let her live out her days.

I'm not quite ready to give up without exhausting all possibilities, though!

While researching alternative treatments, I found a few articles about Aglepristone, a progesterone blocker that's used to treat pyometra in Europe. It started as a treatment for dogs but has also been used successfully in hamsters and guinea pigs as an alternative to ovariohysterectomy. Here are a couple of links:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 012.744145
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/ph ... lepristone

I'm in the U.S. and I'm not sure how easy it will be to find a vet who has experience with this or is willing to try (it's hard enough just finding vets who treat hamsters at all!).

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone has tried Aglepristone for their hamsters, and how it went?

[Kikya]

I haven't tried it, I went through with the surgery and dealt with it that way. Would love to hear more updates if you do end up trying and also do you have any documentation on trying it? Because that could be helpful to other members.

I do have experience convincing vets on using unconventional treatments with hamsters. I had to convince my vet to try trilostane on a Cushing's ham. It took a while and tests that were expensive to exclude other things besides Cushing's. I also showed them as much documentation as I could find of the use of it in the UK and some vet writes ups on prescribing it. That was convincing to them.

Keep us posted!

[sallyforth]

The documentation I have is all similar to the links I posted - case studies and summaries in veterinary/medical journal, but I only have a handful so far.

That's actually part of what I was hoping for by posting: gathering more cases and/or vet references I could present to the vets here. I'm not sure if aglepristone has been approved for use in hamsters in the U.S., so I'm hoping for as many accounts as possible (from everywhere, not just the U.S.) to hopefully convince a vet it's worth trying experimentally.

[sallyforth]

It looks like aglepristone/Alizin might not be an option for Skipper, after all: while the drug isn't banned in the U.S., it isn't available here and has to be ordered from abroad. So I'd have to find a vet willing to give it a try and we'd have to wait for the order to arrive. I reached out to two vets anyhow, just in case. One of them said no and I haven't heard from the other. Also waiting to hear if the rescue organization might know a vet who'd be willing to try.

I feel like I haven't done enough...but I don't know what else to do. It might be a matter of simply making Skipper as happy and comfortable as possible for the rest of her days.

[Kikya]

It looks like aglepristone/Alizin might not be an option for Skipper, after all: while the drug isn't banned in the U.S., it isn't available here and has to be ordered from abroad. So I'd have to find a vet willing to give it a try and we'd have to wait for the order to arrive. I reached out to two vets anyhow, just in case. One of them said no and I haven't heard from the other. Also waiting to hear if the rescue organization might know a vet who'd be willing to try.

I feel like I haven't done enough...but I don't know what else to do. It might be a matter of simply making Skipper as happy and comfortable as possible for the rest of her days.

Seriously, don't feel like you haven't done enough. You have gone beyond what most people would have. I hope a vet reaches out to you to try. The more I read up on this though the more promising it seems as a treatment if surgery isn't an option. It seems like the trickle down for hamster treatments is slow and takes a long time for a vet to take on the challenge. The next time this occurs for me, I will definitely be discussing this as an option, especially since my hospital is a teaching hospital.

Bringing awareness to it is a HUGE step, so postings like this where people can find the information is awesome! I had a female that passed from pyometra and I wish I had known about this then!

[sallyforth]

Seriously, don't feel like you haven't done enough. You have gone beyond what most people would have. I hope a vet reaches out to you to try. The more I read up on this though the more promising it seems as a treatment if surgery isn't an option. It seems like the trickle down for hamster treatments is slow and takes a long time for a vet to take on the challenge. The next time this occurs for me, I will definitely be discussing this as an option, especially since my hospital is a teaching hospital.

Bringing awareness to it is a HUGE step, so postings like this where people can find the information is awesome! I had a female that passed from pyometra and I wish I had known about this then!

Thanks very much for the reassurance; that actually makes me feel less horrible. And you've given me an idea: I'm going to see if I can find a teaching hospital around here (even though I might not have luck making the case, since I won't have an established relationship with them like you do with yours). But yeah, even if it doesn't happen in time for Skipper, anything that advances hamster healthcare is worth the effort.

[Kikya]

Seriously, don't feel like you haven't done enough. You have gone beyond what most people would have. I hope a vet reaches out to you to try. The more I read up on this though the more promising it seems as a treatment if surgery isn't an option. It seems like the trickle down for hamster treatments is slow and takes a long time for a vet to take on the challenge. The next time this occurs for me, I will definitely be discussing this as an option, especially since my hospital is a teaching hospital.

Bringing awareness to it is a HUGE step, so postings like this where people can find the information is awesome! I had a female that passed from pyometra and I wish I had known about this then!

Thanks very much for the reassurance; that actually makes me feel less horrible. And you've given me an idea: I'm going to see if I can find a teaching hospital around here (even though I might not have luck making the case, since I won't have an established relationship with them like you do with yours). But yeah, even if it doesn't happen in time for Skipper, anything that advances hamster healthcare is worth the effort.

Good luck! and if the vet has at least some knowledge of using that in female dogs, which is the most common application I've seen when looking it up, they may be willing to try.