Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Blood test to tell if a cat's breathing trouble is heart-related
By Connolly, David J et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary cardiology : the official journal of the European Society of Veterinary Cardiology·2009·Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, United Kingdom·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Assessment of the diagnostic accuracy of circulating natriuretic peptide concentrations to distinguish between cats with cardiac and non-cardiac causes of respiratory distress.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
A group of 74 cats with breathing problems was studied to see if measuring certain proteins in their blood could help tell if their issues were due to heart failure or other causes. The results showed that cats with heart-related breathing problems had much higher levels of these proteins compared to those with non-heart-related issues. This means that testing for these proteins could be a useful tool for veterinarians when diagnosing cats with respiratory distress. If future tests can be done quickly at the vet's office, it could help in making faster and more accurate diagnoses.
People also search for: cat breathing problems · cat heart failure symptoms · how to tell if my cat has heart issues
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To determine if serum natriuretic peptide (NP) concentrations could distinguish cardiac from non-cardiac causes of respiratory distress (RD) in cats. ANIMALS: Seventy-four cats from 1 university hospital were used. METHODS: Serum NP concentrations were measured in 41 cats with non-cardiac respiratory distress (RD-NC) and compared to 33 cats with RD due to congestive heart failure (RD+CHF) using sandwich enzyme immunoassays (ELISA). RESULTS: RD-NC cats had lower (P=0.0001) median NT-proANP and NT-proBNP concentrations (614 and 45 fmol/mL, respectively) than RD+CHF cats (1690 and 523 fmol/mL, respectively). The area under the curve was 0.88 and 0.96 for the receiver operating curve analysis of the diagnostic accuracy of NT-proANP and NT-proBNP concentrations to discriminate RD+CHF from RD-NC cats (P=0.036). An optimum cut-off concentration of 986 fmol/mL for NT-proANP and 220 fmol/mL for NT-proBNP accurately discriminated RD-NC from RC+CHF cats with a sensitivity of 93.8% and 93.9% and a specificity of 80.3% and 87.8%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Serum NP concentrations were different in RD+CHF cats compared to RD-NC cats. Evaluation of circulating NP concentrations may be helpful in the initial approach to cats presenting with respiratory distress, particularly if advances in ELISA technology result in a rapid cage-side test.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19394286/