Understanding Prognosis and Treatment for Feline Aortic Thromboembolism

Presentation Description / Summary: Feline aortic thromboembolism (FATE, or saddle thrombus) is a devastating clinical syndrome initiated by the sudden migration of a left atrial thrombus into the systemic arteries. Prognosis for FATE is considered poor, with euthanasia as high as 90% in some reports, often without any attempted treatment. However, most of the available literature is retrospective in nature. With treatment, the published survival proportions from retrospective studies is between 27% and 45%, and depends on several characteristics. In the past 5-10 years, more studies and research have been published in FATE, investigating short and long term prognosis, complications types and rates during hospitalization, various options for clot removal including thrombolysis, and long term prevention. Overall our understand of the clinical syndrome have been improving, especially with publications in 2022 and incoming in 2023. In parallel, consensus recommendations regarding thromboprophylaxis and thrombolysis have been recently published (July 2022). Therefore, it is time to review the evidence available in order to appropriately provide compassionate care for FATE cats.

Learner Outcomes: Course Objective 1: Understand and recall the prognosis for FATE cats, including prediction factors for survival, from both prospective and retrospective studies Course Objective 2: Recall and apply treatment options for FATE cats Course Objective 3: Analyze and evaluate the available data regarding thrombolysis for FATE cats