Anaemia in cats and dogs
Anaemia in cats and dogs
The presentations of anaemia in cats and dogs in general practice is highly variable, from severe life threatening emergencies requiring rapid, effective decision making on an approach to diagnosis and treatment, to chronic progressive disease that can have subtle clinical disease and needs a logical and potential cost-conscious approach to an apparently incidental finding on routine blood work.
Cases can be challenging to investigate and treatment highly variable from aggressive intervention sometimes before a diagnosis is achieved to chronic, often long term management and support requiring good communication and clear explanation for the owner. Cats and dogs have significant differences in almost all aspects of anaemia from their laboratory tests to disease types and prevalence
This course is designed to address the most common presentations of anaemia in small animal practice providing a clear and consistent approach that can be modified to suit individual client and patient needs. The modules are:
MODULE 1. Anatomy, pathophysiology and routine haematology in cats and dogs
This first part of this module covers the essential anatomy and physiology of red blood cells and the bone marrow. The second part encompasses haematology, though a routine everyday test performed in veterinary practice, the full value of the haematologic findings are sometimes overlooked. This part will cover interpretation of external and internal result including scatterplots, the terminology used and the basics of in-house evaluation of a blood smear.
MODULE 2. Presentation and diagnostics
Covering the presentation, key history, and physical examination this module provides a sound approach to the basics of the anaemic patient ensuring key information and findings are not missed or ignored. Following on this then leads into the choice and interpretation of further diagnostic tests.
MODULE 3. Transfusion medicine
This module is dedicated to transfusion medicine from donor to administration. The various types of blood products, their advantages and disadvantages will be presented along with how to cross match if repeat transfusions are necessary as well as dealing with transfusion reactions.
MODULE 4. Regenerative anaemias
Based on the history, physical examination and investigations anaemias should be able to be classified as regenerative or non-regenerative. This module addresses regenerative anaemia, haemorrhage vs. haemolysis and how to distinguish the two. Where anaemia is haemolytic, the distinction between unassociated (primary) and associated (secondary) haemolysis can be made.
An essential part of this module will be a discussion of treatment options and ongoing patient monitoring to assess response.
MODULE 5. Non-regenerative anaemias
This final informational module will address causes of on-regenerative anaemia and the approach to deciding whether the cause is systemic or bone marrow related.
Once cause has been established, the second part of the module will discuss an approach to management and rational treatment choices.
MODULE 6 & 7. Clinical cases
These modules will present cases of anaemia in cats and dogs for delegates to work through using a logical and evidenced-based approach.
MODULE 8. Quiz
This final module will bring all the learning from the previous seven modules together as a 40 question, multiple choice quiz designed to reinforce the key messages from the course.
Autoagglutination in a patient with IMHA
All our Tutored Online CPD Courses are written and taught by an expert in the relevant field. The tutor for this course is:
Dr Kit Sturgess MA, VetMB, PhD, CertVR, DSAM, CertVC, FRCVS RCVS Recognised Specialist in Small Animal Medicine Advanced Practitioner in Veterinary Cardiology