Vet World   Vol.14   August-2021  Article-33

Evaluation of pleural fluid parameters related to cardiac diseases in cats

Background and Aim: Cardiac disease is common in cats, and concurrent pleural effusion can worsen the prognosis. However, the definitive diagnosis of feline cardiac disease by echocardiography is limited in some areas. This study was designed to determine the indicators from fluid analysis obtained from pleural effusion to help diagnose cardiac disease in cats.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted. Data of 61 cats with pleural effusion were retrieved. The cats were divided into two groups: Cardiac disease (n=34) and non-cardiac disease (n=27) groups. Sex, neuter status, breed, age, weight, physical findings, fluid analysis results, radiographic findings, echocardiographic findings, and the presence of other diseases or conditions were recorded.

Results: The Chi-square test showed the relationship between cardiac disease and the presence of abnormal heart sounds (p=0.0003), the N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide-positive result from serum samples (p=0.046), the presence of arterial thromboembolism (p<0.00001), and the presence of radiographic evidence of cardiomegaly and pulmonary edema (p=0.0002 and 0.001, respectively). The Mann–Whitney U-test showed a significant difference in protein concentration and specific gravity between the cardiac and non-cardiac disease groups (p=0.012 and 0.009, respectively). The decision tree classification method showed that protein concentrations of ≤3 g/dL were related to cardiac disease (sensitivity, 41.2% and specificity, 92.6%).

Conclusion: The protein concentration in the pleural fluid may be used to distinguish cardiac and non-cardiac diseases in cats. Keywords: cardiac disease, cat, pleural effusion, protein concentration.

Keywords: cardiac disease, cat, pleural effusion, protein concentration.

How to cite this article: Chobsuk N, Pongprasit P, Puangploy P, Bunnag M, Keerativitayanant L, Surachetpong SD (2021) Evaluation of pleural fluid parameters related to cardiac diseases in cats, Veterinary World, 14(8): 2238-2243.

Received: 15-04-2021  Accepted: 23-07-2021     Published online: 27-08-2021

Corresponding author: Sirilak Disatian Surachetpong   E-mail: sirilakd27@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2021.2238-2243

Copyright: Chobsuk, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.