Effect of oral or subcutaneous administration of cyanocobalamin in hypocobalaminemic cats with chronic gastrointestinal disease or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.

Background: No prospective study has evaluated the efficacy of oral supplementation with cobalamin in hypocobalaminemic cats.

Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of oral or SC supplementation with cyanocobalamin in normalizing serum cobalamin and methylmalonic acid (MMA) concentrations in hypocobalaminemic cats with chronic gastrointestinal disease (CGID) or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI).

Animals: Forty-eight client-owned hypocobalaminemic (<290 ng/L) cats with normal or abnormally high serum MMA concentrations.

Effect of oral or injectable supplementation with cobalamin in dogs with hypocobalaminemia caused by chronic enteropathy or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.

Background: Recent studies have shown similar efficacy of oral supplementation of cobalamin compared to injectable supplementation in dogs, but few prospective, randomized studies have been published.

Objectives: To evaluate efficacy of oral or injectable supplementation with cobalamin in normalizing serum cobalamin and methylmalonic acid (MMA) concentrations in dogs with hypocobalaminemia caused by either chronic enteropathy (CE) or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI).

Animals: Forty-six client owned dogs with hypocobalaminemia.

Noninvasive Recognition and Biomarkers of Early Allergic Asthma in Cats Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis of NMR Spectra of Exhaled Breath Condensate.

Asthma is prevalent in children and cats, and needs means of noninvasive diagnosis. We sought to distinguish noninvasively the differences in 53 cats before and soon after induction of allergic asthma, using NMR spectra of exhaled breath condensate (EBC). Statistical pattern recognition was improved considerably by preprocessing the spectra with probabilistic quotient normalization and glog transformation.

Intravenous adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell therapy for the treatment of feline asthma: a pilot study.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of serially administered adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in an experimental feline asthma model.

Methods: Allergic asthma was acutely induced with Bermuda grass allergen in six purpose-bred cats. Five intravenous infusions of allogeneic MSCs (n = 4; MSC-treated) or saline (n = 2; placebo-treated) were administered over the first 130 days after asthma induction.

Oral glucocorticoids diminish the efficacy of allergen-specific immunotherapy in experimental feline asthma.

Allergen-specific rush immunotherapy (RIT) shows promise in treating asthma; however, pet cats will likely require at least initial concurrent glucocorticoids (GCs) to control serious clinical signs. How the immunosuppressive effects of GCs would impact RIT in cats is unknown. The hypothesis of this study was that oral, but not inhaled GCs will diminish the efficacy of RIT in experimental feline asthma.

Upregulation of proinflammatory cytokine production in response to bacterial pathogen-associated molecular patterns in dogs with diabetes mellitus undergoing insulin therapy.

Background: Metabolic alterations associated with diabetes mellitus alter innate immunity. Dogs often develop infectious or inflammatory complications related to diabetes mellitus, yet little is known about the effects of diabetes mellitus on the immune system in this species.

Methods: Prospective evaluation in dogs with poorly regulated spontaneous type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).

Flow cytometric determination of allergen-specific T lymphocyte proliferation from whole blood in experimentally asthmatic cats.

The ability to quantify feline lymphocyte proliferation, especially to specific antigen or allergen, would be valuable in experimental models and naturally developing disease where activated lymphocytes drive immune responses. Traditional proliferation assays may pose radioactivity hazards, lack the ability to distinguish viable from non-viable cells, and cannot discriminate individual populations of proliferating lymphocytes (e.g.

The impact of oral versus inhaled glucocorticoids on allergen specific IgE testing in experimentally asthmatic cats.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are palliative for allergic asthma, but allergen-specific immunotherapy (ASIT), which relies on identification of allergens, represents a potentially curative treatment. The purpose of this study was to determine if oral or inhaled GCs would interfere with identification of sensitizing allergens. The hypothesis was that oral but not inhaled GCs would interfere with accurate allergen-specific IgE identification determined by skin and serum testing in experimentally asthmatic cats.

Beneficial cross-protection of allergen-specific immunotherapy on airway eosinophilia using unrelated or a partial repertoire of allergen(s) implicated in experimental feline asthma.

The study hypothesis was that in experimentally asthmatic cats rush immunotherapy (RIT) using allergens not completely matched with sensitizing allergen(s) would at least partially attenuate the asthmatic phenotype and modulate the aberrant immune response. In phase I, cats sensitized to Bermuda grass allergen (BGA), house dust mite allergen (HDMA) or placebo received BGA RIT. In phase II, cats dually sensitized to BGA and HDMA received RIT using BGA, HDMA or placebo.

Clinical and immunologic assessment of sepsis and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome in cats.

Objective: To compare clinical findings and inflammatory mediator production among cats with sepsis, cats with noninfectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and healthy cats.

Design: Case-control study.

Animals: Cats with sepsis (n = 16) or SIRS (19) and 8 healthy control cats.

Age-associated changes to pathogen-associated molecular pattern-induced inflammatory mediator production in dogs.

Objective: To determine whether older dogs will have a more pronounced pro-inflammatory response and blunted anti-inflammatory response to pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) compared with younger dogs.

Design: Prospective.

Setting: University teaching hospital.