THERAPEUTICS
Pharmacokinetic studies in possums and gliders are scant. In many instances dose rates are derived from small animal medicine. Marsupials are separated from eutherian mammals by over 100 million yr of evolution, so it is highly unlikely that direct extrapolation from small animal medicine is appropriate.
In the single study that has been performed, enrofloxacin at a dose of 10 mg/ kg administered PO to eastern ring-tailed possums was found to be effective for 24 hr at a level that would be considered bactericidal for a range of bacterial species reported to infect these animals. Importantly, when enro- floxacin was given SC, drug absorption was very poor and considered an ineffective method of administration (Scheelings et al. 2015) (see Chapter 11 and Appendix 4).ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I thank Linda Marr, wildlife carer for her excellent unpublished article ‘Understanding common ringtail possum caecal stasis for wildlife carers.’
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