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Peer-reviewed veterinary case report

Heart function differences in cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

By Suzuki, Ryohei et al.·Published in BMC veterinary research·2019·Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine, Japan·View original on PubMed

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Original publication title: Assessment of myocardial function in obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy cats with and without response to medical treatment by carvedilol.

Species:
cat

Plain-English summary

A group of 21 cats with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (a heart condition) were treated with a medication called carvedilol to see how well their hearts responded. After treatment, 10 cats showed improvement, while 11 did not. The cats that didn’t respond were generally older and had more severe heart issues. The study found that the way the heart muscle functioned was different between the two groups, which could help vets understand why some cats respond better to treatment than others.

People also search for: cat heart disease treatment · carvedilol for cats · hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in cats symptoms

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Inconsistency of treatment response in cats with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is well recognized. We hypothesized that the difference in response to beta-blockers may be caused by myocardial functional abnormalities. This study was designed to compare myocardial function in cats with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with and without response to beta-blockers. Twenty-one, client-owned, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy cats treated with carvedilol were analyzed. After carvedilol treatment, cats with decreased left ventricular outflow tract velocity were categorized as responders (n&#x2009;=&#x2009;10); those exhibiting no response (no decrease in the left ventricular outflow tract velocity) were categorized as non-responders (n&#x2009;=&#x2009;11). The cats were examined using layer-specific assessment of the myocardial function (whole, endocardial, and epicardial layers) longitudinally and circumferentially by two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography, before and after carvedilol treatment. RESULTS: The non-responder cats had a significantly higher age, end-diastolic left ventricular posterior-wall thickness, peak velocity of left ventricular outflow tract, and dose of carvedilol than the responders (p&#x2009;=&#x2009;0.04, p&#x2009;<&#x2009;0.01, p&#x2009;<&#x2009;0.01, and p&#x2009;<&#x2009;0.01, respectively). The circumferential strain in the epicardial layer was lower and circumferential endocardial to epicardial strain ratio was higher in non-responders than responders (p&#x2009;<&#x2009;0.001 and p&#x2009;=&#x2009;0.006). According to the multivariate analysis, circumferential strain in the epicardial layer was the only independent correlate of treatment response with carvedilol. CONCLUSIONS: Myocardial function, assessed by two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography, differed in cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with and without response to beta-blockers. The determination of layer-specific myocardial function may facilitate detailed pathophysiologic assessment and treatment response in cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

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Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31660967/