Cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

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Cataria

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Hey all,

I posted back in 2019 about one of my cats (Ronan) being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and especially being concerned about it being genetic since I have all of Ronan's siblings and his mother. Well, since then, I have determined two of his siblings, Kismet and Treble, also have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Lucky me...

I tried taking them to a specialist vet back in 2019, but the vet is two hours away and they didn't handle the trip well (plus, super expensive). I let things go for awhile during COVID, but I found a closer vet that doesn't specialize in cardiology, but at least has the necessary equipment and took them there a few weeks ago. He put Ronan and Kismet on clopidogrel and said that Treble did not need to be on medication at this time since her disease has not progressed any, even after discontinuing medication in 2020.

I have their echocardiogram values and I was wondering if anybody had any ideas on how to interpret them. It sounded like Ronan's disease is much further progressed than Kismet's and Treble's, but I'm not sure how bad it is, and how likely it is that something bad will just suddenly happen, like blood clots and so on. I tried to question the vet, but I wasn't really sure how to phrase what I was asking. Here are their values, in case anybody has any expertise or has their own HCM cat that we can compare...

Ronan
LA:Ao: 2.74
LA: 18.0mm
Aorta: 11.0mm
IVSd: 9.9mm
LVDd: 11.3mm
Wd: 10.8mm
IVSs: 10.5mm
LVDs: 7.7mm
Ws: 12.1mm
FS %: 62%		Kismet
LA:Ao: 1.51
LA: 15.3mm
Aorta: 9.1mm
IVSd: 7.4mm
LVDd: 12.1mm
Wd: 7.8mm
IVSs: 9.9mm
LVDs: 4.9mm
Ws: 9.8mm
FS %: 59%
Treble
LA:Ao: 1.68
LA: 12.6mm
Aorta: 9.5mm
IVSd: 6.9mm
LVDd: 10.6mm
Wd: 5.1mm
IVSs: 10.2mm
LVDs: 5.0mm
Ws: 8.1mm
FS %: 65%
 
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Cataria

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Furballsmom said:
Hi! I don't have any experience with this, but I was wondering, would that specialist vet be willing to look at the values and talk to you, at least to explain the results, since you were a client?
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That I'm not sure! It wouldn't hurt for me to at least call and see what they would be willing to do.
 
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fionasmom

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I checked Jamie's last echocardiogram done by his cardiologist just under a year ago. He is due for another one in the near future. In general, on the values you posted, Jamie is lower than Ronan, sort of between Kismet and Treble. His vet ran the initial echo and between her and the radiologist, he was put on atenolol and clopidogrel. When I took him to a cardiologist, at the encouragement of his vet, she took him off of both meds because she did not feel that his case was advanced enough. She also felt that the use of atenolol in HCM cats is strictly anecdotal and not backed up by studies. However, this is one cardiologist with one opinion, and one that Jamie's vet seems to still find odd.

Cardiology is very complex and you have a couple of ways to approach it. If you want a detailed discussion of the values, you have a right to ask that they be explained to you. However, they are very technical and have to be taken as a whole; it is not as straightforward as someone finding out that they have very high blood glucose because there is a clear number that indicates that. I don't know if you received a longer report from the echo, but Jamie's has several more pages to it; I just looked up the values you posted. From my point of view, it is up to the doctor to interpret them for you and to answer your questions about prognosis....any and all questions that you have. Did you receive a narrative version of the report?
 
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