Overview
- Keepers grew concerned when the 23-year-old python Jodie Foster began eating less and staying inactive, and veterinary checks found a malignant tumor in her jaw bone.
- The team first removed the tumor surgically but the growth returned, prompting a second operation followed by a tailored electrochemotherapy (ECT) treatment.
- The zoo said Friday that follow-up exams this week found Jodie cancer-free and that she is eating and behaving normally again.
- Electrochemotherapy uses short electric pulses to help chemotherapy drugs enter and kill cancer cells and is already used in some human and veterinary cases but has not been widely reported in reptiles.
- Chester Zoo says this is, to their knowledge, the first time ECT has been used on a snake and the vets hope the case will guide future exotic-animal oncology even though the claim has not been independently verified.