Nasopharyngeal stenosis treated with mechanical dilatation in a domestic longhair cat

Abstract

A seven-year-old domestic longhair cat was referred with a history of recurrent stertor following conservative treatment. Nasopharyngoscopy showed a stenosis with an opening of 2 mm, which was dilated with cotton buds of increasing size. Histopathology of the stenosed tissues revealed chronic active inflammation. Dilatation relieved the clinical signs for four years before recurrence. The same procedure was repeated after the stenosis recurred, but the improvement lasted for only two weeks. At that point, a ‘balloon dilatation’ was performed using a Foley catheter. At the time of writing of this paper, the cat is still clinically normal (six months postprocedure).