8 Jun 2021
Researchers at the veterinary school have launched a survey after seeing an unprecedented spike in cats across the UK presenting with the symptoms of pancytopenia.
Joshua Silverwood
Job Title
Image © Dimitris Vetsikas / Pixabay
Veterinary researchers at the RVC are asking for help to identify a suspected mystery toxin causing disease in cats.
Vets at the RVC have launched an investigation after they noticed an unprecedented spike in cats presenting with the symptoms of pancytopenia, causing a deficiency in all types of blood cells.
The veterinary school is now asking owners who have cats suffering with symptoms – such as bleeding from the mouth and nose – to fill out a survey so they can discover the origins of the potential toxin.
Karen Humm, researcher at the RVC, said: “When we took bone marrow samples, we had noticed in these cats that there appeared to be very few young precursor cells present and there appears to have been an insult to the bone marrow.
“We see cases like this really rarely, probably not even once a year. Now we have seen maybe five cases in a few weeks.
“We immediately put some information out and informed the BSAVA, before reaching out to other clinics and small animal vets to ask if they had seen this before.
“Some of the vets we had spoken to had not just seen other cases like this, some of them had seen a few cases, but couldn’t afford to refer.”
To find out the true scale of cats presenting with symptoms, researchers have created a survey for owners and vets to upload information about potential cases. So far researchers have had information on 60 cases uploaded, with more coming in daily.
Dr Humm added: “Other vets we have spoken to have all agreed that this is very unusual. Something very acute seems to have happened.
“We have been thinking: is this an infection or is this a toxin? It fits better as a toxin, but it’s odd because we have had a number of cats come in that are indoor cats.
“We have also seen some cats within the same household being affected. People have brought in pairs of cats that present the same symptoms.
“It just doesn’t work like a virus, we aren’t seeing it spread around particular areas like a virus would. It hasn’t spread in our hospital.”
At first researchers were only getting reports from the south-east and the London area, but reports have started to come in from as far afield as Scotland and Northumbria.
Initially, the team at the RVC was worried that the disease may have been related to FIP, but all cats brought in have been tested for FIP and so far all have tested negative.
Dr Humm continued: “Unfortunately, as of right now we don’t know of any potential treatments. The most important thing people could do for us now is to take part in our survey and share any information they may have if they think their cat has suffered with this.
“We have had some people who think they can’t take part in the survey because they haven’t had all the data or their cat has since passed away, but we want people to know that you don’t need full bone marrow test results.
“A simple haematology result or even anecdotal information would be helpful to our research.“
