Objectives: The aims of this study were to validate a commercially available chemiluminescent assay for measurement of feline plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone concentration (ACTH), to determine the normal reference interval (RI) of plasma ACTH in healthy cats, to assess plasma ACTH in cats with naturally occurring hypercortisolism (HC), primary hypoadrenocorticism (PH) and other diseases (OD), and to evaluate the effect of aprotinin on plasma ACTH degradation.
Methods: Forty healthy cats, 10 with HC, 11 with PH and 30 with OD, were included. The chemiluminescent enzyme immunometric assay was evaluated by measurement of intra-assay precision, interassay precision and linearity.
A 13 yr old castrated male vizsla was referred to the authors' institute because of polyuria, polydipsia, polyphagia, and weight loss. Pituitary-dependent hypercortisolism (PDH) was diagnosed by hormone testing and adrenal and pituitary imaging. Computed tomography (CT) revealed a pituitary mass measuring 21 mm in width.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF