Echocardiographic, morphometric and biomarker changes in female cats followed from 6 to 24 months of life.

Ingrid Mj Van Hoek,David J Connolly,John E Rush,Jeremy Laxalde,Lisa M Freeman

doi:10.1177/1098612x20943684

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate cardiac size and early growth through echocardiographic, body weight (BW), body condition score (BCS), morphometric and biomarker changes in cats followed from 6 to 24 months of age. Twenty-four female European shorthair colony cats were evaluated at birth for BW and at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months of age for BW, BCS, head length (HL) and head width (HW), N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and echocardiographic measurements. BCS, HW, left ventricular free wall in diastole, left atrium diameter and aortic diameter increased significantly between 6 and 12 months, while BW, HL and interventricular septum in diastole increased significantly between 6, 12 and 18 months, and BW decreased significantly between 18 and 24 months. NT-proBNP decreased significantly between 6 and 12 months. IGF-1 increased significantly between 6 and 12 months but decreased significantly between 12 and 18 months. This study prospectively evaluated changes in echocardiographic measurements, BW, BCS, HL, HW, IGF-1 and NT-proBNP in cats during the first 2 years of life. Results show a comparable change over time for different variables. These findings contribute to the understanding of a possible relationship between cardiac measures and body size from young age through to adulthood.

Highlights

There is a possible interaction between body size and cardiac health in cats
Linear Mixed models were used for modelling the effect of Time (6, 12, 18 and 24 months) on the echocardiographic measurements (2-D-left ventricular internal diameter in diastole (LVIDd), 2-D-IVSd, 2-D-LVWd, aortic diameter (Ao), left atrium (LA), LA:Ao, M-IVSd, M-LVIDd and M-LVWd), morphologic variables (BW, body condition score (BCS), HL and head width (HW)) and blood markers (IGF-1 and NT-proBNP)
This was to investigate whether echocardiographic measures are associated to morphologic variables and blood markers at a specific time point, and to investigate whether echocardiographic measures are associated to changes in these morphologic variables and blood markers, i.e. measured insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) concentration and an increase in insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 would be associated with an echocardiographic measure

Summary

Introduction

There is a possible interaction between body size and cardiac health in cats. Cats with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) are skeletally larger (i.e., larger heads, vertebrae, and longer humeri) and heavier at diagnosis.[1,2,3,4] They are heavier at an early age compared to cats without HCM.[5]. Multiple studies have identified associations between bodyweight (BW) and left ventricular measurements in healthy cats and cats with HCM.[11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18] These studies show differences in study design, with primarily intact cats that were all or mostly adults, including single or different breeds, and different gender ratios All these studies examined the cats at one single time point, and did not report BCS, making it impossible to evaluate how many of the cats in these previous studies were ideal body weight or overweight/obese, which would identify possible confounded associations between BW and echocardiographic measurements. A previous study in cats with asymptomatic HCM showed significant associations between circulating cardiac biomarkers, echocardiography, BW, and BCS.[10]

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