Abstract
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal disease that poses several challenges for veterinarians: clinical signs and laboratory changes are non-specific, and there are two pathotypes of the etiologic agent feline coronavirus (FCoV), sometimes referred to as feline enteric coronavirus (FECV) and feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV) that vary fundamentally in their virulence, but are indistinguishable by a number of diagnostic methods. This review focuses on all important steps every veterinary practitioner has to deal with and new diagnostic tests that can be considered when encountering a cat with suspected FIP with the aim to establish a definitive diagnosis. It gives an overview on all available direct and indirect diagnostic tests and their sensitivity and specificity reported in the literature in different sample material. By providing summarized data for sensitivity and specificity of each diagnostic test and each sample material, which can easily be accessed in tables, this review can help to facilitate the interpretation of different diagnostic tests and raise awareness of their advantages and limitations. Additionally, diagnostic trees depict recommended diagnostic steps that should be performed in cats suspected of having FIP based on their clinical signs or clinicopathologic abnormalities. These steps can easily be followed in clinical practice.
Highlights
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal disease that occurs in domestic and wild felids worldwide
The same finding was made in a study in which different samples (FNA or incisional biopsies (IB)) were obtained from different tissues of 20 cats with immunohistochemically confirmed FIP in order to determine the prevalence of feline coronavirus (FCoV) RNA in different tissues and to potentially evaluate the diagnostic performance of Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) on those tissue samples for diagnosing FIP
Specificity of RT-PCR in effusion was high in many studies and a positive RT-PCR result can add to a suspicion of FIP, it has to be kept in mind that RT-PCR already detects small amounts of viral RNA, which can potentially leak from blood into effusion in the face of inflammation in cats with circulating feline enteric coronavirus (FECV) [110]
Summary
Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal disease that occurs in domestic and wild felids worldwide. The feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV), in contrast, is not infectious via the fecal-oral route, but arises by mutation from the avirulent FECV within a small percentage of infected cats and causes the fatal disease feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) [4,5,6]. It is still unknown which exact genes harbor the mutation(s) leading to FIPV development. Definitive diagnosis is challenging, since most existing diagnostic tests cannot differentiate between FECV and FIPV, and especially in cats without body cavity effusions, it is often difficult to reach a definitive diagnosis ante mortem
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