Urinary albumin and transferrin as early diagnostic markers of chronic kidney disease

Feline renal diseases are increasingly noted in veterinary practice. It is important to diagnose and identify the pathological basis of renal dysfunction accurately at an early stage, but there are only a few reports on this area in clinical veterinary medicine. We investigated the efficacy of measurement of urinary albumin (u-Alb) and urinary transferrin (u-Tf) for early diagnosis using 5-µl urine samples collected noninvasively by catheterization from normal (IRIS stage I) cats and cats with stage I chronic kidney disease (CKD). The u-Alb levels in normal and stage I CKD cats were 6.0 ± 4.5 and 11.2 ± 8.4 mg/dl, respectively, and the u-Tf levels were 0.09 ± 0.42 and 0.52 ± 0.79 mg/dl, respectively. Based on ROC curve analysis, the sensitivity and specificity of u-Alb and u-Tf were higher than those of the currently used biomarker, the plasma creatinine level. The sensitivity of u-Alb was higher than that of u-Tf, whereas the specificity of u-Tf was higher than that of u-Alb. The validity of the threshold albumin level (20 mg/dl) was confirmed by measurements using SDS-PAGE. Since leakage of u-Tf in urine precedes leakage of u-Alb, inclusion of u-Tf in biochemistry tests may be appropriate for IRIS staging as a diagnostic marker of early diagnosis of renal disorder in cats.     

Assessment of left ventricular longitudinal function in cats with subclinical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy using tissue Doppler imaging and speckle tracking echocardiography

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in cats is characterized by concentric left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and both diastolic and systolic dysfunction. Although impaired cardiac function detected by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) in cats with HCM was previously reported, reference ranges of TDI in normal cats and cats with HCM have been reported as widely variable. Two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) was useful for assessment of cardiac function in human patients with HCM, but clinical utility was not known in cats. The aim of this study was to assess global and segmental LV myocardial function using STE in cats with HCM whose TDI variables were within the reference range. A total of 35 cats of different breeds were enrolled in this study. The HCM group (n=22) was cats diagnosed as HCM without left atrial enlargement and with normal TDI measurements. HCM cats were further divided into a segmental hypertrophy (S-HCM) group and a diffuse hypertrophy (D-HCM) group. The control group consisted of 13 clinically healthy cats. No cats in any group showed any clinical symptoms. Conventional echocardiography, TDI, and global and segmental STE indices were evaluated and compared between groups. Only the longitudinal strain rate during early diastole was significantly decreased in both HCM groups, even in all segments including those without hypertrophy in S-HCM group. This study suggests that STE parameters are the more sensitive variables compared with conventional TDI parameters to detect early myocardial diastolic dysfunction in cats with HCM.     

Nonsurgical resolution of caudal mediastinal paraesophageal abscess in a cat

A one-year-old, castrated male domestic short hair cat was admitted with a history of anorexia, regurgitation and pyrexia for two days. Fever and leukocytosis were identified. There were a large soft tissue density oval mass in the caudal mediastinum on thoracic radiographs, a fluid-filled oval mass in the caudal mediastinum on ultrasonography, and left-sided and ventrally displaced and compressed esophagus on esophagram. On esophageal endoscopy, there were no esophageal abnormalities. CT findings with a fluid filled mass with rim enhancement indicated a caudal mediastinal paraesophageal abscess. The patient was treated with oral antibiotics, because the owner declined percutaneous drainage and surgery. The patient was admitted on emergency with severe respiratory distress; and ruptured abscess and deteriorated pleuropneumonia were suspected. With intensive hospitalization care and additional antibiotic therapy, the patient had full recovery.     

Tissue-specific and substrate-specific mitochondrial bioenergetics in feline cardiac and skeletal muscles

No studies have investigated the mitochondrial function in permeabilized muscle fiber from cats. The aim of this study was to investigate tissue-specific and substrate-specific characteristics of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) capacity in feline permeabilized oxidative muscle fibers. Biopsies of left ventricular cardiac muscle and soleus muscle, a type I-rich oxidative skeletal muscle, were obtained from 15 healthy domestic cats. Enzymatic activity of citrate synthase (CS), a biomarker of mitochondrial content, was measured. Mitochondrial OXPHOS capacity with various kinds of non-fatty-acid substrates and fatty-acid substrate in permeabilized muscle fiber was measured by using high-resolution respirometry. CS activity in the heart was 3 times higher than in the soleus muscle. Mitochondrial state 3 respiration, ADP-stimulated respiration, with complex I-linked and complex I+II-linked substrates, respectively, was significantly higher in the heart than in the soleus muscle when normalized for muscle mass, but not for CS activity, indicating that greater capacity for mitochondrial OXPHOS with these non-fatty-acid substrates in the heart may depend on higher mitochondrial content. In contrast, the soleus muscle had higher mitochondrial state 3 respiration with fatty acids than the heart when normalized for CS activity, indicating greater capacity for fatty-acid oxidation per mitochondrion in the soleus. Our findings suggest that there are tissue- specific and substrate-specific quantitative and qualitative differences in mitochondrial OXPHOS capacity between the different types of oxidative muscles from cats.     

Effects of nutritional support on hospital outcome in dogs and cats

Objective – Investigate the effects of assisted nutritional support on hospital outcome in dogs and cats, and the relationship between hospital outcome and energy intake, body condition score (BCS), physical status score, and type of nutritional support used. Design – Retrospective analysis of hospitalized animals. Setting – Teaching Veterinary Hospital. Animals – Four hundred and sixty‐seven dogs and 55 cats. Interventions – Routine clinical nutritional support. Measurements and Main Results – The following variables were recorded for each animal: energy intake, body weight at admission and discharge, BCS, physical status score, and type of nutritional support used. Disease severity was negatively associated with hospital outcome and energy intake (P=0.009). Energy intake was positively associated with hospital discharge (P<0.001). Outcome may be related to BCS, with discharge rates of 73% for animals with low BCS, and 84.7% for those at an ideal BCS or overweight (P=0.04). Sixty‐four percent of animals showed voluntary food intake (92.9% were discharged), 19.0% received enteral support (71.8% were discharged), 7.0% were forced fed (75.0% were discharged), 6.0% received parenteral support (61.9% were discharged), and 4.0% did not receive calories (38.4% were discharged), suggesting a possible relationship between the type of nutritional support, energy intake, and outcome (P=0.009). Conclusions – Energy supply, even if modest and close to resting energy requirements appears to be positively associated with hospital discharge. However, disease severity was the main negative factor on outcome and also had a negative effect on energy intake, making it difficult to separate the effects of both factors when interpreting hospital discharge. Thin animals with low BCS had greater mortality.     

ULTRASONOGRAPHIC OBSERVATION OF SECRETIN-INDUCED PANCREATIC DUCT DILATION IN HEALTHY CATS

Secretin is a polypeptide hormone that stimulates secretion of bicarbonate from the exocrine pancreas and, in healthy human subjects, causes transient pancreatic duct dilation observable sonographically. In humans with chronic pancreatitis, secretin administration fails to cause pancreatic duct dilation, theoretically due to the restrictive effects of periductal fibrosis. We characterized the effect of exogenous secretin administration on the width of the pancreatic duct in nine healthy domestic cats. Cats were given a commercially available secretin product (ChiRho Stim™) while the pancreatic duct was monitored sonographically. Mean pancreatic duct diameter increased from 0.77±0.33 to 1.42±0.40 mm after secretin administration ( P =0.0017). The mean percent increase in pancreatic duct diameter over basal diameter for all time points up to 15 min postsecretin administration was 101.9±58.8%. Applicability of this technique to diagnose chronic pancreatitis in cats will need to be investigated.     

CALCULATION AND USAGE OF THE THYROID TO BACKGROUND RATIO ON THE PERTECHNETATE THYROID SCAN

Feline hyperthyroidism is a common endocrine disorder. A single dose of 148 MBq (4 mCi) ¹³¹I is 95–98% effective for the treatment of hyperthyroidism in cats; however, the cause for treatment failures has not been determined. In a series of 113 hyperthyroid cats having pertechnetate thyroid scintigraphy before treatment using a standard 148 MBq (4 mCi) ¹³¹I dose, the thyroid to salivary gland (T:S) ratio and the thyroid to background (T:B) ratio were calculated. Results in 107 (95%) cats successfully treated were compared with results in six (5%) cats that remained hyperthyroid after treatment. T:B ratio was significantly higher for cats that had treatment failure (median 13.0, range 3.6–73.0) than for cats successfully treated (median 4.4, range 1.2–69.0) (P=0.02), whereas there was no significant difference in their T:S ratios (P=0.2). The T:B ratio is a new approach to evaluating the thyroid pertechnetate scan with the intent of identifying which hyperthyroid cats may fail treatment using a standard 148 MBq (4 mCi) ¹³¹I dose and which, therefore, require a higher dose.     

Feline conjunctival melanoma: histopathological characteristics and clinical outcomes

Purpose  We report on the histopathology and clinical features of 21 cases of feline conjunctival melanoma.
Methods  A total of 18 cases are from the COPLOW collection and three cases from Antech Diagnostics. We tabulated the location of the tumor, pigmentation, cell shape, mitotic index and presence of multinucleated tumor cells. Surveys were sent to referring ophthalmologists to obtain further information about each case.
Results  The mean age of the cats was 12.4 years. A total of 11 cases were neutered males, six spayed females, and one each of intact female and male. Thirteen of the 21 cases were located on the bulbar conjunctiva, three on third eyelid only, three on palpebral conjunctiva. Sixteen tumors were pigmented while five were amelanotic. Seventeen of the cases consisted of round cell only while four cases were mixed populations of round and spindle cell. Fourteen of the cases contained multinucleated cells. The mitotic index ranged from 0 to 45 mitotic figures/10 HPF. Of the 13 cases with adequate follow-up information, four showed local recurrence while three reported metastasis. Eight cats had died at the time of the survey. Survival time post-diagnosis ranged from 0.5 to 36 months. Two cases had metastasized to the submandibular lymph nodes and in a third case, an abdominal mass was detected.
Conclusions  Feline conjunctival melanoma is most frequently found on the bulbar conjunctiva, are mostly round cells and suggest that conjunctival melanoma in cats has a poorer long term prognosis than the same neoplasm in dogs.     

广州地区猫泛白细胞减少症病毒分离鉴定及全基因组遗传分析

【目的】分析广州地区猫泛白细胞减少症病毒(Feline panleukopenia virus,FPLV)的自然重组、跨宿主传播以及流行变异情况。【方法】采集疑似感染猫泛白细胞减少症病毒的猫粪便样品进行细胞分离,并对阳性病料提取基因组DNA,PCR扩增获得病毒的全基因组序列,并与Gen Bank中相关的参考毒株序列进行遗传进化分析,同时对VP2基因与NS1基因的主要氨基酸位点进行差异分析。【结果】成功获得2株猫泛白细胞减少症病毒及其全基因组序列。遗传进化分析显示,广州地区分离的猫泛白细胞减少症病毒FPLV-GZ01、FPLV-GZ02与我国其他分离毒株FPLV-XJ01、FPLV-HRB属同一分支,提示FPLV-GZ01、FPLV-GZ02由FPLV-XJ1进化而来;NS1基因系统进化树显示,FPLV存在与CPV-447重组的可能。主要氨基酸位点分析显示,FPLV在VP2基因中的主要氨基酸位点上的遗传变异比CPV保守;在NS1基因上发现FPLV-GZ01、FPLV-GZ02分别存在不同程度的氨基酸位点突变。【结论】广州地区分离的猫泛白细胞减少症病毒仍在不断地重组进化。     

北京地区规模化猪场繁殖障碍性疾病的诊断研究

为了给猪病毒性繁殖障碍性疾病的鉴别诊断提供一个快速、灵敏、特异的检测手段,本试验应用ELISA、PCR、RT-PCR及细胞培养等方法对北京某猪场弱仔、流产、死胎、木乃伊胎及出生后几天死亡的小猪进行猪瘟病毒(CSFV),伪狂犬病毒(PRV),圆环病毒2型(PCV-2),细小病毒(PPV)和猪繁殖与呼吸综合征病毒(PRRS...