Echocardiographic Findings of Left Ventricle (LV-Study) in Cats Diagnosed with Atrial Septal Defect (ASD)

Abstract

Background: The severity of congenital heart disease can range from trivial to life threatening and clinical signs might have no specific manifestation prior to sudden death. Due to difficulties of diagnosis based on physical examination alone, it is advisable that radiographic and echocardiographic examinations be performed on all kittens early in their lives.Objectives: To evaluate echocardiographic and radiographic findings in a group of cats with atrial septal defect (ASD) and comparing their LV-study with a group of cats with normal cardiac indices.Methods: In the group of cats with ASD medical records were reviewed for signalment, clinical findings and echocardiographic data and measurements in B- mode, M- mode and Color Doppler. In the group of cats with normal heart condition, all their radiographic and echocardiographic findings were normal and their echocardiographic data were used for comparison with the same data in the group of cats with ASD. Results: The direction of the shunt in all cats with ASD was left-to-right. The mean LA/Ao and IVSd were the only two LV- study parameters that were statistically higher in the group of patients than the control group, although other LV-study parameters showed non-significant differences between these two groups. The mean IVSs, EF% and FS% in the patients were higher than the control group. The mean LVIDs in the group of patients was lower than the control group and the mean LVIDd, LVPWd and LVPWs were almost the same in the two groups. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that despite the existence of a defect on the interatrial septum in the patients, most of their left ventricular echocardiographic parameters showed no significant differences from normal references.