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HCM in Cats

Patti

Admin
Staff member
I never understood the claim of high percentage serval in cats. I thought a f1-f3 were all just high percentage. this all makes a lot more sense. Wow that would be pretty great I'd they could make it happen .


"Those who wander aren't always lost"
I have an F4 that has almost 12% TWiG (theoretical Wild Gene). His parents and grandparents were both F3 x F4 breeding. I would consider him to be HP (although I've never promoted him as such).
 

Bekki

Savannah Super Cat
I do think it is absurd! Lol. But this was coming from someone who heard something and took it as written in stone and didn't do any research to support it. I guess I am the opposite I like to hear a "fact" a few times over before considering it set in stone and hcm isn't set in stone to begin with. and from what I see the breeders of Savannah's love and adore their cats., and are careful breeders. To achieve good colors temperament etc in a humane way. no kitty mills. Although I think I have heard from a few a1 may be that type of cattery. Have yet to come across many breeders who aren't giving the utmost care to their extended family. meh guess you have to take some things with a grain of salt. Savannah's seem like a very hearty breed. A lot less fragile than I had previously assumed (whoops)


"Those who wander aren't always lost"
 
Last edited:

Michaela

Savannah Super Cat
The bottom line is feline HCM outcome is more prevalent and with worse outcome then in humans. Most vet cardiology recommend treatment but there is no data to confirm therapy changes long term outcome.
One Asa compare to Plavix recurrence thrombosis study is in progress.

http://www.vetgo.com/cardio/concepts/concsect.php?conceptkey=96#96

"""""prognosis for feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)?

Many individuals can be managed for 6 months to several years.
In a retrospective study of 74 cats with HCM (Atkins et al. JAVMA, 1992):
Median survival time (MST) overall was 732 days.
Cats free of clinical signs lived much longer (MST 1830 days) than cats with heart failure (MST 92 days).� Cats with heart failure lived longer than cats with thromboembolism (MST 61 days).
Cats with an initial heart rate > 200 did worse than if heart rate < 200.
In a more recent retrospective study of 260 cats with HCM (Rush et al. JAVMA, 2002):
Median survival time overall was similarly 709 days.
MST for cats free of clinical signs was 1129 days, while MST for cats with clinical signs was as follows: 654 days for cats with syncope, 563 days for cats with CHF, and 184 days for cats with ATE. The longer survival times for cats with clinical signs in this more recent study may be due to changes over time in the natural history of disease, differences in disease severity, or improvements in medical therapy.
Increasing left atrial size and age were associated with shorter survival times
There is no data to suggest whether the obstructive form has a different outcome from the non-obstructive form.
It is unknown whether asymptomatic or symptomatic patients live longer with long term therapy than with placebo. Interim analysis of the only prospective, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial in cats with HCM and CHF has failed to show that any therapy (ACE-inhibitor, calcium channel blocker, or beta-blocker) with furosemide is superior to furosemide alone.
Even though anti-thrombotic therapy is utilized, thromboemboli may still cause limb paralysis which may result in the owners requesting euthanasia.
For cases due to systemic hypertension, we believe antihypertensive therapy (especially amlodipine) can potentially reverse the underlying disorder.
There is also no experience attempting to relate the degree of concentric hypertrophy with outcome. In people there is no relation between the degree of concentric hypertrophy and outcome.


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Michaela L
 

Michaela

Savannah Super Cat
I have an F4 that has almost 12% TWiG (theoretical Wild Gene). His parents and grandparents were both F3 x F4 breeding. I would consider him to be HP (although I've never promoted him as such).



So my Romeo a F 4 with 25-30% more like F2 is not common and the pedigree is not all disclosed in the registry .. ... Old breeding was not recorded and date way before TICA had interest in Savannah cats.

So it was customary and not unusual to mix SV with bengals and serval to get high percent kittens .. With nice fur and spots then SV with SV ..



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Michaela L
 

Patti

Admin
Staff member
The bottom line is feline HCM outcome is more prevalent and with worse outcome then in humans. Most vet cardiology recommend treatment but there is no data to confirm therapy changes long term outcome.
One Asa compare to Plavix recurrence thrombosis study is in progress.

http://www.vetgo.com/cardio/concepts/concsect.php?conceptkey=96#96

"""""prognosis for feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)?

Many individuals can be managed for 6 months to several years.
In a retrospective study of 74 cats with HCM (Atkins et al. JAVMA, 1992):
Median survival time (MST) overall was 732 days.
Cats free of clinical signs lived much longer (MST 1830 days) than cats with heart failure (MST 92 days).� Cats with heart failure lived longer than cats with thromboembolism (MST 61 days).
Cats with an initial heart rate > 200 did worse than if heart rate < 200.
In a more recent retrospective study of 260 cats with HCM (Rush et al. JAVMA, 2002):
Median survival time overall was similarly 709 days.
MST for cats free of clinical signs was 1129 days, while MST for cats with clinical signs was as follows: 654 days for cats with syncope, 563 days for cats with CHF, and 184 days for cats with ATE. The longer survival times for cats with clinical signs in this more recent study may be due to changes over time in the natural history of disease, differences in disease severity, or improvements in medical therapy.
Increasing left atrial size and age were associated with shorter survival times
There is no data to suggest whether the obstructive form has a different outcome from the non-obstructive form.
It is unknown whether asymptomatic or symptomatic patients live longer with long term therapy than with placebo. Interim analysis of the only prospective, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial in cats with HCM and CHF has failed to show that any therapy (ACE-inhibitor, calcium channel blocker, or beta-blocker) with furosemide is superior to furosemide alone.
Even though anti-thrombotic therapy is utilized, thromboemboli may still cause limb paralysis which may result in the owners requesting euthanasia.
For cases due to systemic hypertension, we believe antihypertensive therapy (especially amlodipine) can potentially reverse the underlying disorder.
There is also no experience attempting to relate the degree of concentric hypertrophy with outcome. In people there is no relation between the degree of concentric hypertrophy and outcome.


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Michaela L
Sorry, but this is giving conflicting information. First it says that asymptomatic cats live much longer than cats in heart failure, then goes on to say that cats with a HR <200 live longer than those with a HR >200 and both lived longer than those that developed thrombi. So it makes no sense to say that therapy does not improve outcomes, because if you give a beta blocker to slow down the HR to <200 and give furosemide to keep the cat out of heart failure and give aspirin or Plavix to prevent thrombi then clearly the cat will have better survival statistics.
 

Patti

Admin
Staff member
So my Romeo a F 4 with 25-30% more like F2 is not common
Cats with this type of TWiG have only come from one cattery
So it was customary and not unusual to mix SV with bengals and serval to get high percent kittens .. With nice fur and spots then SV with SV ..
Mixing Savannahs with Bengals does give a higher TWiG, but not a higher Serval percent, such as your Romeo purports to have. The purpose of using Bengal was not to get a higher TWiG, it just happened that Bengal breeders were some of the first to start breeding Savannahs, so used what was on hand...


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Michaela L
 

admin

Paige
Staff member
As far as I am concerned, the entire HP savannah is somewhat misleading...there is NO way to tell how many serval genes each kitten in a litter gets...so calling any savannah kitten HP with anything below 62.5% serval genes is BS...

Most F1 breeders, if honest, will not tout any savannah kitten below 60% as HP...
 

Brigitte Cowell

Moderator
Staff member
Michaela, as a scientist, basing your opinion of the outcome of HCM in cats on a paper from 1992 is kinda weak... that's TWENTY TWO YEARS ago! LOL! Even the 2002 study is 12 years ago, and I might suspect that just like in human medicine, there has been progress in treatments and ability to manage the disease since then.

I do understand the negative feelings, when my Bobo was diagnosed years ago I started mourning his loss at that time. I was a mess. I expected him to fail and die at any moment. The risk of him throwing a clot seemed so likely with the amount of mitral regurgitation he had...so anytime I came across him napping my heart would stop and I would hold my breath until I saw him take a breath... I probably aged myself some years with all the stress and worry. But the one thing I learned from his condition and that of a couple other SVs I know that had heart disease, is that they are strong cats and fighters. With good management they can defy the odds and live a good quality life for much longer than you might expect. I agree it is serious with Romeo being diagnosed so early in life, but don't discount the benefit that careful monitoring and appropriate medications can bring.
 

Michaela

Savannah Super Cat
Bridgette

Bad habit to look at the literate myself
The vet cardiology quoted the same lack of information of research in HCM
No real data despite a prevalent disease
All vets cardiology that I spoke with say the same

I will still treat Romeo and summit him to Savannah Illustrated


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Michaela L
 

Brigitte Cowell

Moderator
Staff member
I don't think looking at literature is a bad habit, it's something I do on a regular basis. Just we were taught also to keep an eye on publication dates simply because things do change with time. It can be frustrating when you find a dearth of recent research. Another reason to fundraise for more feline health research! Funding is the issue, it is because of the differences with the human disease that there would be less research, usually in cats and dogs it is easier to find research funding if you can draw parallels between their disease and a human one.

I'm sorry you are in such a negative place, Mikaela, I understand that but hope that you can work your way to a more positive outlook as time goes on. I hold out hope that Romeo's life will be bettered in quality and extended in time with good management.

Maybe you just haven't found the right cardiologist vet yet. Back in September I had a critically ill cat, my vets went crazy reaching out to everyone they could think of for opinions on what was going on with her. Every specialist they contacted was negative, whole email groups were negative on her case. ONE research vet with Antech had a different opinion. I clutched at that straw and went with it, and Zari is about to reach her 6 month anniversary from that collapse. She most likely will not live long, but I continue to hope for miracles. I got one with Bobo, he wasn't supposed to make 2 years of age and was 12 and a half when he passed (from something other than his heart).

Maybe the answer isn't in conventional veterinary medicine, maybe it is acupuncture, or herbs, or even crystals. I've had great results with acupuncture with my dog and a kitten for differing conditions. While I am not an advocate of ignoring western medicine, I don't see alternative medicine having to be exclusive... I'm fortunate that my regular vet and the specialist hospital I go to is happy to combine them all.
 
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