Sick Whale Is Responding to Experimental Treatment

Knootka, an 8,500-pound killer whale suffering from a rare fungal infection, is slowly responding to treatment with an experimental drug usually used on humans, Sea World officials said Wednesday.

Last month, Knootka, one of Sea World’s two adult killer whales, became the first whale ever to receive itraconazole, an experimental drug that is approved for human use in Europe. Today, after about five weeks of treatment, her appetite has returned, a lesion on her tongue has disappeared and she appears to have more energy than before, Sea World veterinarian Jim McBain said.

“She’s definitely an improved animal,” he said. “She appears not to be deteriorating. She obviously has the will to carry on.”

In addition, McBain said, Knootka’s high percentage of body fat has made her unexpectedly well-suited for treatment with itraconazole. McBain had consulted with physicians who had used the drug on human patients, so he knew that the drug had an affinity for fat cells. But it had not occurred to McBain that Knootka’s blubber would make her an ideal patient.

“Physicians remark that you virtually never treat a human being with a systemic infection who is fat,” McBain said. “By the time they come in for treatment, they’re compromised and worn down. But we have a patient that’s far different than that--she’s got a lot of fat.”

By absorbing itraconazole in her fat cells, Knootka has been able to store the drug internally--so much so, in fact, that McBain halted her daily treatments about three weeks ago.

“She is still getting medication, but not from us,” he explained, comparing Knootka’s way of storing the drug to a time-release capsule. “She appears to have stored enough in her blubber that, ever since we’ve stopped giving it, it has been slowly released into her blood stream.”

McBain said Knootka’s survival was cause for celebration, but said he is cautious in his optimism.

“We’ve got a long ways to go, and we feel her prognosis is still definitely guarded. We all know that she can still go any time, and we couldn’t stop that,” he said. “But we’ve gone farther than we thought we might have already. A month has passed, and she’s still here. If we were losing the battle, she wouldn’t be.”