Abstract
Community pharmacies are increasingly receiving prescriptions from veterinarians for dogs and cats to receive human medications. However, retail pharmacists are not routinely trained in relevant aspects of veterinary-specific pharmacotherapy, such as, signs of improvement, time to improvement, drug administration techniques and potential adverse effects. Thyroid diseases in dogs and cats are treated with human-approved drugs that may be referred to pharmacies. Hypothyroidism is far more frequent in dogs, while hyperthyroidism is far more frequent in cats. Important comparative aspects of canine hypothyroidism pharmacotherapy can be summarized as follows: 1) Canine hypothyroid disease is similar to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans in many of its signs and is treated using levothyroxine; 2) The doses of levothyroxine given to dogs are strikingly higher than in people; 3) A reasonable therapeutic goal is resolution of symptoms in two weeks to two months and a normal total T4 value (≈04-3.7 μg/dL). Important comparative aspects of feline hyperthyroidism pharmacotherapy are: 1) Cats usually have a functional thyroid adenoma, while people usually have an autoimmune condition referred to as Grave’s disease; 2) Common signs noticed by cat owners are weight loss and increased appetite; 3) Methimazole is used for therapy as it often is in people; 4) Clinical improvement follows in approximately 3-4 weeks; 5) Adverse reactions occur and are most often vomiting, anorexia, and lethargy; 6) Transdermal methimazole from a compounding pharmacy will be a consideration for some cats.
Highlights
Retail pharmacies are receiving an increasing number of prescriptions for pets, primarily dogs and cats, to receive humanapproved medications
In the majority of cases, this atrophy is associated with acquired autoimmune lymphocytic thyroiditis, similar to Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in humans, as both are characterized by cellular lymphocytic, as well as humoral autoantibodies against thyroglobulin, T4 and T3 in the thyroid gland [1]
Hypothyroidism is most often diagnosed in middle-aged dogs and is more likely in pure breeds
Summary
Retail pharmacies are receiving an increasing number of prescriptions for pets, primarily dogs and cats, to receive humanapproved medications. Retail pharmacists are not routinely trained by pharmacy schools in veterinary-specific pharmacotherapy, yet they have a duty to provide necessary counselling. They may need to help the pet client with questions regarding signs of therapeutic efficacy, time from initiation of therapy until clinically noticeable improvement, remedies to drug administration difficulties and potential adverse effects. This article will cover the most common endocrine diseases of dogs and cats—thyroid diseases. While diabetes is by far the most common endocrine disease in people, in dogs and cats, diseases of the thyroid are the most frequent endocrinopathies. Hypothyroidism is far more frequent than hyperthyroidism, while in cats, the opposite is true. Thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) exist both in bound-to-plasma-protein and in unbound, free states, and only the free molecules have biological effects and can be readily metabolized
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