Feline LRT Disease Flashcards
(45 cards)
What would you be most suspicious of in an older cat with LRT signs?
Increases suspicion for other disease such as:
- hyperthyroidism
- neoplasia
- cardiac disease
What would you be most suspicious of in a younger cat with LRT signs?
Increases suspicion for:
- infectious disease
- viral
- parasitic
- Mycoplasma
- bacterial
- toxoplasma
How common is bacterial pneumonia in cats compared to dogs?
- Bacterial pneumonia is relatively uncommon in cats compared with dogs
- More likely to be inflammatory disease rather than bacterial cause if they have pulmonary pathology
What is the usual clinical history of a cat with LRT disease? What are the 3 ways it tends to present?
- Usually a low grade chronic disease
- Coughing
- Audible wheezing
- “exercise intolerance”
- Sometimes a very acute presentation
- Brought in as an emergency
- Respiratory distress
- Mouth breathing
- Tachypnoea
- Episodic respiratory distress
- Sometimes self-limiting
- Sometimes will come and go
- Respiratory effort?
What are the main questions that should be asked with a cat with LRT disease?
- Are there any trigger factors?
- Change in environment?
- New cat litter?
- Passive smoking?
- Seasonal?
- Is the cough productive?
- Any significant weight loss, anorexia, signs of other systemic disease?
What behavioural changes might make you suspect a more chronic disease in cats?
- quieter?
- staying in bed all day?
- less playful?
- grooming less?
- staying at floor level/reluctant to jump up on furniture?
What should be your first priority with a cat presented to you with respiratory signs?
Oxygenation and minimal handling
What clinical signs would make you suspect laryngeal disease, such as laryngeal lymphoma?
- Laboured inspiration
- stridor
- ↑ effort
- slow inspiratory phase
- +/- change in
- purr
- vocalisation
What specific clinical signs would make you most suspicious of upper airway disease in cats?
- Dysphagia +/- salivation
- Coughing /gagging
- might be triggered by eating/drinking
- “Head shaking” behaviour
What clinical signs would make you more suspicious of lower airway disease in cats?
- Often more subtle
- Laboured expiration
- Prolonged expiratory phase
- Additional expiratory push
- Audible expiratory wheeze
- ↑ airway resistance due to
- Bronchospasm
- Mucous
- Bronchial wall thickening
- +/- occasional → paroxysmal cough
In a cat with lower respiratory tract disease, what type of condition will be at the top of your differentials list generally?
Inflammatory
What are the main two lower airway diseases we tend to see in cats?
- Feline asthma
- Chronic bronchitis
How is feline asthma caused?
- Reversible
- Inhaled allergen
- Airway hyper reactivity
- Bronchoconstriction
- Sometimes get eosinophilic airway inflammation
What are the main clinical signs of feline asthma?
Episodic respiratory distress and dyspnoea
How is chronic bronchitis caused?
- Response to infection or inhaled irritants
- Airway damage
- Excess mucus
- Neutrophilic airway inflammation?
How is chronic bronchitis similar/different from feline asthma?
- Similar inflammatory problem but doesn’t have the same degree of reactivity
- More chronic
- Coughing is a key clinical sign of chronic bronchitis (compared to episodic respiratory distress and dyspnoea in asthma)
What are the main differentials for a coughing cat?
- Upper respiratory tract disease
- Inflammatory lower airway disease
- Infectious – bacterial, viral, parasitic
- Foreign body
- Neoplasia
- Heart disease rarely causes coughing in cats
What are the main differentials for hyperpnoea/tachypnoea in a cat?
- Stress/pain/fear response
- CNS disease
- Anaemia/hypovolaemia
- Heatstroke
- Think about non cardiorespiratory causes: could your patient have been in an RTA?
How useful are haematology and biochemistry when investigating a cat with LRT disease?
- Haematology might be helpful as would indicate systemic inflammation, anaemia of chronic disease, eosinophilia etc. but often normal
- Biochemistry is often normal
- Therefore in a budget case haematology and biochemistry probably are not necessary, especially compared to diagnostic imaging
What is the problem with attempting bronchoscopy in a cat with LRT disease?
- Useful but we already have narrowed airways so doing this without causing further damage is not ideal in an animal of this size
- Therefore not usually a first line approach in a coughing cat
What are the main diagnostics you would consider using in a cat with LRT disease?
- Diagnostic Imaging, esp. radiography or CT if available
- Haematology and biochemistry?
- Bronchoscopy?
- Endotracheal wash
- Faecal analysis for parasites
Is it safe to go straight ahead with the investigations for a cat brought in as a respiratory emergency?
- The crisis point in cats with episodic symptoms, it is not the ideal time to investigate
- A dyspnoeic cat is often best left alone for a while and stabilised
Why is general anaesthetic often safer for cats with suspected airway disease than sedation?
- Better for these cats generally than sedation as you can control the airways and oxygenation
- Also often shorter acting
- And sedation may reduce the inspiratory effort and therefore oxygenation of the animal
What would you expect to find on thoracic radiographs of a cat with LRT disease?
- Might be normal
- Bronchial pattern
- +/- interstitial pattern
- Hyperinflation
- Air trapping
- Collapse of R middle lung lobe? (sometimes)
- Patchy alveolar pattern?
- Aerophagia → air in stomach
