Our feline companions cannot, and will not, tell us when they are unwell. It is in the nature of the species for a cat to use all sorts of clever tricks to hide its suffering, so it is our job to decipher and uncover any predispositions, sensitivities and health problems. A vet who is familiar with, and experienced in, what is “normal” in cats and what disturbs their health will certainly find it easier to assess your cat's condition.
Together with a detailed history and a thorough physical examination, blood and urine tests give us a significant amount of information about our patients' health and help us determine whether they are affected by particular disorders or health problems. A laboratory assessment, meticulous and tailored to each patient's individual needs, is generally carried out in two different circumstances:
- As part of the diagnostic work-up of a sick patient
- As part of assessing and identifying each patient's particular features within the preventive medicine programme.
Repeat laboratory tests are also carried out during the treatment and recovery of feline patients, so that we can monitor their response to treatment precisely and meticulously.
Laboratory tests – an essential aid in caring for feline patients
By instinct, cats hide or mask illness so as not to appear vulnerable to their natural predators, so they will give you no reason for suspicion until their suffering has reached an advanced stage. In some ways, blood and urine tests help our patients “talk to us”. In our experience, our patients – cats – typically come to us ill at advanced stages of disease and seem to have fallen ill suddenly, although they have been suffering for weeks or even months. Remember that cats are small, solitary creatures with many predators in the wild. If they showed signs of illness or weakness, they would without doubt fall prey to them. This inherited instinct means that cats will only show us they are unwell in the advanced stages of disease, when they can no longer “hide” it. To help counter the consequences of our cats' “hidden” nature, we recommend blood and urine tests twice a year or once a year, depending on your cat's age group and predispositions or sensitivities.
Patient trends
Age-specific laboratory profiles, carried out regularly, give us a great opportunity to become familiar with each cat's characteristic values and ranges for every component tested, and then help us diagnose early and start appropriate treatment quickly, long before clinical signs of illness and suffering take hold of our companions. This concept, called “Patient trends”, captures the patient's evolution over time and offers many advantages:
- We can establish normal values for each individual cat while she is young and healthy.
- By comparing results from one year to the next, we can spot changes much earlier. Not only can we detect changes when values fall outside the normal reference range, we can also identify and monitor changes in values that are still within it. For example, if your cat's kidney values start to rise but are still within the reference range, we can start treatment early and monitor the patient much more closely, to keep them stable and help them live longer.
- The “Patient trends” programme is a powerful tool for detecting and treating disease early, with the main aim of giving our patients long, healthy lives.
The major benefit of detecting and treating disorders and disease early is an easier, faster recovery and less complex treatment, and therefore avoiding unnecessary suffering and excessive costs.
Patient trends – Adolescent & Adult Cats
To follow patient trends and establish your cat's normal values, all our patients under 7 years of age have a health assessment, generally once a year. This includes extended serum biochemistry, a complete blood count with differential and blood smear analysis, FIV + FeLV serology and a complete urinalysis (refractometric urine specific gravity, urine biochemistry and microscopic examination of the sediment).
Patient trends – Senior & Super-senior Cats
Remember! Age is not a disease, but we know very well that many diseases can affect our cats, especially in their later years. So once our cats pass the age of 7, we move to a much more thorough assessment, generally twice a year, which continues the patient trends programme started at the beginning of the cat's life and helps us detect and treat any disease early. The most common diseases in our older cats include kidney disease, thyroid disease, diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel disease and the various types of cancer. Our mission is prevention and early detection. The assessment includes extended serum biochemistry, a complete blood count with differential and blood smear analysis, FIV + FeLV serology (if it was not done in previous years or if there are signs or circumstances suggesting possible infection), measurement of thyroid hormone (total T4) and a complete urinalysis (refractometric urine specific gravity, urine biochemistry and microscopic examination of the sediment).
The Cats' LadyVet Centre for Feline Medicine has its own in-house laboratory, which provides results for the most common blood and urine tests on the same day. This is especially useful when your cat suddenly becomes unwell and needs the right treatment quickly. We also work actively with a reference laboratory that allows us to carry out more specialised and demanding additional tests – specific serum parameters, haematology and coagulation tests, therapeutic drug monitoring, hormones, dedicated profiles for different medical areas, serology, immunology, allergology, molecular biology, genetic tests, toxicology tests, microbiology and histopathology.