Abstract
Even though tumours are considered to occur frequently in pet hamsters, there is only a small number of scientific reports in current literature. Pathological reports from 177 hamsters were evaluated. Of these, 78 were male and 75 were female. Median age of affected hamsters was 12 months (range 2-34). Integumental tumours were the most common neoplasms (62%, 109/177). As far as species was known, the number of Syrian hamsters (52%, 30/58) affected by tumours seemed to be lower than the number of affected dwarf hamsters (85%, 47/55). Tumours of the hematopoietic system were the second most frequently neoplasms (17%, 30/177). Relative number of neoplasms of the endocrine system, tumours of the digestive system (1.7%, 3/177) and other tumours (4%, 7/177 each) was low. The majority of integumental tumours were epithelial (66%; 91/126). This study aimed to analyze data from veterinary surgeries and pathological institutes about the occurrence of spontaneous tumours in Syrian hamsters and dwarf hamsters to give information about the frequency of tumours, prognosis and survival time. This is the first study about tumours in pet hamsters in Germany so far.
Highlights
Hamsters belong to the order of rodents (Rodentia) and are very popular as pets
A total of 177 tumours were detected in 58 Syrian hamsters and 55 dwarf hamsters (30 Djungarian hamsters, three Campbells dwarfs, three Roborovskii hamsters, one Chinese hamster, species not reported in 18 cases)
Syrian hamsters and Djungarian hamsters are the most common species of pet hamsters, the number of affected animals of these species was markedly higher than the number of other dwarf hamsters
Summary
The most common species is the Syrian or golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus).[1] Dwarf hamsters include the Djungarian hamster (Phodopus sungorus), the Campbells dwarf (Phodopus campbelli) the Roborovskii hamster (Phodopus roborovskii) and the Chinese hamster (Cricetulus griseus). The average lifespan varies from to 36 months depending on the species.[1]. While scientific reports on tumours of laboratory hamsters are common, reports on tumours of pet hamsters are uncommon. Most of them are case reports about tumours of the hematopoietic system (lymphoma, mastocytoma) and mesenchymal tumours (mostly cutaneous haemangiosarcoma) with a small number of animals.[2,3,4,5] Only one study from. Even though tumours are considered to occur frequently in pet hamsters, there is only a small number of scientific reports in current literature
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