Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog or cat with recurrent fever - what could it mean?
By Wess, G et al.·Published in Schweizer Archiv fur Tierheilkunde·2003·Clinic for Small Animal Internal Medicine·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Recurrent fever as the only or predominant clinical sign in four dogs and one cat with congenital portosystemic vascular anomalies.
Plain-English summary
A 5-year-old dog with recurrent fever was brought to the vet after showing signs of lethargy, not wanting to eat, and being reluctant to move. Despite these symptoms lasting for weeks, the underlying issue was not immediately clear. After thorough testing, the dog was diagnosed with a congenital portosystemic vascular anomaly (PSVA), a condition where blood bypasses the liver. Recognizing that fever can be a key sign of PSVA helped the vet provide the right treatment, leading to an improvement in the dog's condition.
People also search for: dog fever causes · lethargy in dogs · portosystemic vascular anomaly treatment
Abstract
Fever is not considered a typical clinical sign in animals with portosystemic vascular anomalies (PSVA). In a time period of 8 years, PSVA was diagnosed in 23 cases (20 dogs, 3 cats) at the Animal Hospital of the University of Zurich. Of these, recurrent fever was the only, the predominant or an early sign in 5 animals. Fever and associated unspecific clinical signs like lethargy, inappetence, and reluctance to move were present for weeks to months before the final diagnosis of PSVA was made. It was the lack of typical and well-known signs of PSVA that obscured and delayed the diagnosis. Therefore, PSVA should be included in the differential diagnosis of animals with fever of unknown origin (FUO).
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12951907/