Feline Ultrasound: The Yellow Cat and Ultrasound-Guided Fine Needle Aspirates (DIAG434)

Course overview

It's an often-repeated adage - "cats are not little dogs", and this is especially true with feline medicine and ultrasound. Cats have many unique diseases that require feline-specific knowledge to diagnose and treat. Ultrasound is one of the most useful tools feline clinicians have in their arsenal to diagnose diseases in cats, who often present with very vague and non-specific clinical signs. This is one of four courses in the Feline Ultrasound collection. Each course will consist of a single 2-hour session that will focus on the normal ultrasound appearance of an organ system and then present changes observed that are associated with specific diseases. These courses are independent of each other and can be taken in any combination. This course will review two important concepts: scanning the yellow cat and how to perform ultrasound guided fine needle aspirates. We will review the 3 causes of icterus in cats and how to use ultrasound to narrow down the differential list. We will discuss the normal appearance of the feline liver, gallbladder, and pancreas on ultrasound, and review the ultrasound appearance of diseases causing hyperbilirubinemia in cats. The course will review when to perform fine needle aspirates and when to avoid the procedure. There will be a detailed overview of how to perform ultrasound guided FNA and how to prepare and submit slides, considerations and approaches to aspirating individual organs, and ideal case selection.