My favourite papers JUNE

Don’t you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the number of papers published every week? Once a month I choose three or four publications related to feline medicine that I find particularly controversial or interesting from a first opinion clinical point of view. I may also include a personal comment about EBVM or ethics!

BEHAVIOUR

Salonen et al. Breed differences of heritable behaviour traits in cats ScientificReports  (2019) 9:7949 

This study uses questionnaires to assess behavioural differences between 19 feline breed groups. A total number of 5726 are involved. They include environmental factors and even heritability! Which breed do you think seems to be the most extrovert? 

ENDOCRINOLOGY

Albuquerque et al.  Priorities on treatment and monitoring of diabetic cats from the owners’ points of view JFMS (June 2019)

We definitively have to make an effort to:

-          Help owners to recognise unstable diabetes

-          Talk about home blood glucose monitoring & the importance of diet on diabetic remission/stabilisation

-          Explain and supervise how to draw up insulin and inject the cat at the beginning of the treatment.

 

ECC

Gillespie et al. The Compliance of Current Small Animal CPR Practice With RECOVER Guidelines: An Internet-Based Survey Front. Vet. Sci. (June 2019)

Oops! It seems that we should read this a bit more often: RECOVER https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1476-4431.2012.00757.x

ANALGESIA

Adrian et al. Prescribing practices of veterinarians in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain in cats Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery 2019, Vol. 21(6) 495–506

Mmmm… Are you prescribing gabapentin when meloxicam would me more appropriate?  

Look at it with an EBVM eye: All these papers have something in common. They are all based on questionnaires. Would you like to know which are the biases that questionnaires may show? Go to A Catalog Of Biases In Questionnaires

Look at it with from an ETHICAL perspective: Once you read that paper about behavioural traits, how are you going to let it influence your clinical decisions? We have also observed behavioural differences in dog breeds, but it may not be as useful as we may think re problem-solving performance as the authors of these other paper find... 

Clarke et al Exploring the Utility of Traditional BreedGroup Classification as an Explanation of Problem-Solving Behavior of theDomestic Dog (Canis familiaris) Journalof Veterinary Behavior July 2019