Effectiveness of blood transfusion to cats suffering flea infestation

Abstract

Donation and transfusion of whole blood and its components in cats are relevant issues in veterinary practice. Blood transfusion to cats helps effectively treat anemia of diverse causes or at least stabilize a patient for further examinatons and searh of solutions for particular pathologies. Measures ensuring blood matching of donor and recipient cats must be conducted with the utmost care and thoroughness possible. At the very least, the blood group A/B/AB of both cats should be checked, and ideally further cross-sampling should be performed so as to detect Mik antigenes and other incompatibilities. Unlike dogs, cats have natural antibodies. Donor cats must be clinically healthy, vaccinated, 2–8 years old, weigh over 4 kg, with hematocrit over 30% (preferably more than 35%). Also, a donor cat should be examined for blood-transmitted infections, including feline leukemia virus (FeLV), feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), and Mycoplasma haemofelis (pathogen of infectious feline anemia). The article presents clinical cases of using blood transfusion to treat feline anemia and results of the conducted laboratory studies, showing effectiveness of the performed medical procedures. After blood transfusion, the cats had positive dynamics in the general clinical state and increases in the main morphological blood parameters up to the norm or to values close to it. However, the issue of posthemorrhagic anemia requires more in-depth research in each separate case, particularly regarding the underlying case, since it can return the animal’s state and its main morphological blood parameters to the initial level, with no recovery, or at least long remission. It was found that whole-blood transfusion to the recipient animals with flea invasion increased the number of red blood cells, hemoglobin content, and hematocrit, which positively affected blood oxygenation and redox processes in the recipient animals, and accordingly their general clinical state.