Veterinary Clinics of North America-Small Animal Practice最新文献

Respiratory imaging in dogs and cats integrates multiple modalities to noninvasively evaluate thoracic disease. Radiography is the first-line tool but has limitations in assessing dynamic and subtle abnormalities. Advanced imaging such as fluoroscopy, ultrasonography, and computed tomography (CT), enhances characterization of airway, parenchyma, and pleural disorders. CT provides high-resolution cross-sectional detail for lesions of increased or decreased attenuation, nodules, masses, airway collapse, and linear patterns, although definitive diagnosis often requires cytology or histopathology. Understanding each modality's strengths and limitations and combining imaging with clinical data optimizes diagnostic accuracy in respiratory disease.

The anatomic abnormalities found in dogs with brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome lead to changes in airway resistance and turbulent airflow. Altered airway resistance leads to secondary airway changes. All these changes cause airway noises, which may be present at rest or elicited during exercise. Exercise tolerance tests, careful respiratory auscultation, and identification of increased effort respiratory can help to grade brachycephalic dogs into different categories based on disease severity. Other categorization systems and multiple surgical procedures aim to stratify and alter the anatomic abnormalities leading to clinical impairment. Multiple anatomic sites should be addressed based on the anatomic abnormalities.

Pneumonia is inflammation of the lower airways, which is most often caused by bacterial infection. Breed-related predisposing factors for pneumonia development include primary ciliary dyskinesia and diseases causing laryngeal dysfunction and megaesophagus. Two distinct respiratory diseases occur in the Irish Wolfhounds-Rhinitis bronchopneumonia syndrome in puppies and recurrent bacterial pneumonia in adult dogs. A breed-related predisposition to immune deficit and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia occurs in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Miniature Dachshunds.

The initial emergency assessment and stabilization of patients with respiratory distress requires an alternative diagnostic and therapeutic approach. A combination of initial therapeutic interventions to relieve signs of respiratory distress or stabilize the patient, including anxiolytics and oxygen therapy, along with diagnostics such as point-of-care ultrasound, is often helpful. Definitive diagnostics and therapeutics can then be tailored to the patient once the source of the respiratory distress is localized broadly to the upper airway, pulmonary parenchyma, pleural space, or cardiac structures.

Fungal and atypical bacterial pneumonias are emerging infectious threats in companion animal medicine, fueled by ecological disruption, globalized pet travel, and immunomodulatory therapies being increasingly used. These infections challenge clinicians in ways that conventional bacterial pneumonia does not-presenting insidiously, extending beyond the lung, and not responding to empirical treatment. Delayed or missed diagnosis remains a costly, defining hallmark. Recognizing these conditions demands a shift in clinical thinking: one that weighs host susceptibility, exposure history, and geographic epidemiology alongside conventional diagnostics. This review equips clinicians with the knowledge to suspect, investigate, and treat complex pneumonias earlier and with greater confidence.

Biomarkers are measurable characteristics found in blood and other body fluids or tissues. Biomarkers serve as indicators of biological processes, and they can be applied to diagnose a disease, to monitor disease progress, or to evaluate treatment response. Inflammatory biomarkers, C-reactive protein in dogs and serum amyloid A, are increasingly used as diagnostic and follow-up markers in pneumonia. Additionally, various biomarkers have been described for the diagnosis of canine idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, to discriminate between cardiac and noncardiac causes of respiratory distress as well as for the detection of microaspiration.