Shawn Kearns, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM), shares results from a study evaluating the diagnosis, or presumed diagnosis, in a cohort of pyretic juvenile dogs.
A minimum database for patients presented with fever should include a CBC, serum chemistry profile, diagnostic imaging, and infectious disease testing.”
Source: Clinician’s Brief, July 2019. Link. Key pearls to put into practice:
- Ideally, a thorough diagnostic investigation should be performed in patients presented with fever to obtain a definitive diagnosis and direct appropriate treatment
- Persistent fever in a juvenile patient, despite prior administration of antibiotics and nonsteroidal therapy, should prompt strong consideration for autoimmune disease, particularly steroid-responsive meningitis arteritis or polyarthritis
- Although infectious etiologies were not as common as noninfectious etiologies in this study, it is important to exclude infectious causes prior to testing or presumptive treatment for immune-mediated disease
INSIGHTS: Kearns notes differences in cats and dogs with fever sharing, “In contrast to dogs, a recent study found young cats to be more likely to have infectious causes of fever and in general, immune-mediated disease to be less common in young and older cats.”