Taipei Zoo on Monday said an autopsy on the male giant panda Tuan Tuan (??) confirmed the animal suffered from cerebral atrophy caused by a brain tumor prior to its death last month.
The 18-year-old panda was euthanized on Nov. 19 after its health deteriorated following a series of seizures in late August, which based on MRI scans doctors concluded were brought on by a malignant brain tumor.
At a press conference Monday, zoo administrators said an autopsy was conducted on Tuan Tuan the day the panda died and the resulting report was reviewed by a team of experts last Friday.
The report showed that Tuan Tuan suffered from gemistocytic astrocytoma -- a type of primary tumor that affects the central nervous system -- on the left side of the brain, which in turn caused severe cerebral atrophy, according to the officials.
Liu Chen-hsuan (???), head of the zoo's veterinary team, said the extent of Tuan Tuan's brain atrophy can be seen in the brain to body mass ratio, which at the time of death was 1:412, compared to 1:238 in healthy pandas.
According to Liu, the only other documented case of a panda developing a brain tumor in captivity was a 14-year-old female that died at Chengdu Zoo last year.
However, that case involved a different type of tumor to the one Tuan Tuan had, he said.
Giant pandas have a lifespan of 15-20 years in the wild, though they can live up to 30 years in captivity.
Tuan Tuan was one of two giant pandas that were gifted by China in 2008 to mark then warming relations with Taiwan. The pandas were 4-years old when they arrived in the country.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (???) first offered the pandas to Taiwan as a gift of friendship in May 2005 when then-opposition Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan (??) made an ice-breaking visit to Beijing.
The gift, however, was blocked at the time by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which objected to China's treatment of the panda transfer as a "domestic transfer" between zoos because it implied that Taiwan is part of China.
The issue was resolved under the Ma Ying-jeou (???) administration, which favored improving ties with China. Both sides decided to sidestep the issue of country name by agreeing to identify the importer as "Taipei, Taiwan" and accepting "Chengdu, Sichuan" as the origin of export.
Over the years, Tuan Tuan and his mate Yuan Yuan (??) -- whose names together mean "reunion" in Chinese -- have had two cubs, Yuan Zai (??) and Yuan Bao (??) in 2013 and 2020, respectively.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel