Pittsburgh zoo lemur recovering after rare mastectomy

A lemur at the Pittsburgh zoo is recovering from a mastectomy performed Tuesday to remove two malignant tumors, a surgery rarely done in zoos.

“Mastectomies in the zoo world are pretty uncommon, especially in primates,” said Dr. Ginger Sturgeon, the zoo’s director of animal health. “It’s a very uncommon type of surgery, and it’s a very uncommon type of tumor, especially for ringtail lemurs.”

Zookeepers noticed swelling near the left breast of Caera, a 14-year-old ringtail lemur, earlier this year. A biopsy confirmed the cancer, and a lumpectomy in February showed two different tumors, Sturgeon said.

She said she could find only a few mentions of such surgery on ringtail lemurs in academic literature the world over.

“Caera’s kind of in a league of her own now,” Sturgeon said.

Because breast cancer and the needed surgery are so rare in lemurs, the zoo brought in Dr. Jack Demos, the founder and director of SurgiCorps International, a nonprofit that provides medical care and reconstructive surgery.

The cancer, she said, was low-grade, which means it’s not likely to spread. The disease showed no signs of having spread to Caera’s lymph nodes, so Sturgeon elected not to remove them.

Without the surgery, the animal would have had just a few years to live, she said. In captivity, they can live up to 30 years.

Caera’s recovery will involve getting back into the exhibit with her troop as soon as possible: The hierarchy of lemur troops is driven by the females, and the troop will immediately start to revise the hierarchy if one animal is gone for too long, Sturgeon said.