1. [Untitled]
- Author
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Bęczkowski, Paweł M., Litster, Annette, Lin, Tsang Long, Mellor, Dominic J., Willett, Brian J., and Hosie, Margaret J.
- Subjects
CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes ,Male ,Feline immunodeficiency virus ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Lymphoma ,CD4-CD8 Ratio ,Immunodeficiency Virus, Feline ,Cat Diseases ,Microbiology ,Article ,Virus ,Cohort Studies ,Viral Proteins ,CD4:CD8 ,Feline Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ,Internal medicine ,Animals ,Medicine ,Prospective Studies ,FIV load ,Prospective cohort study ,Phylogeny ,Immunodeficiency ,CATS ,General Veterinary ,biology ,Clinical outcome ,business.industry ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,biology.organism_classification ,veterinary(all) ,FIV ,3. Good health ,Natural infection ,Cohort ,Immunology ,Cats ,Disease Progression ,Female ,business ,Cohort study - Abstract
Highlights • Multi-cat household animals displayed 63% mortality rate. • Lymphoma was the most common cause of death. • The CD4:CD8 ratio failed to distinguish cats classified as healthy and not healthy. • FIV load failed to distinguish cats classified as healthy and not healthy. • Management and housing conditions impact on the progression of FIV infection., Despite over 25 years of feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) research, relatively little is known about the longitudinal course of FIV infection following natural infection. In contrast to published reports of experimental infections using lethal strains of the virus, clinical signs of naturally acquired FIV infection can be mild or inapparent, rather than life-threatening. In this prospective, longitudinal controlled study, based in Chicago, IL (n = 17) and Memphis, TN (n = 27), we investigated two cohorts of privately owned, naturally infected cats kept under different housing conditions. Cats in the Chicago cohort (Group 1) were kept in households of ≤2 cats, while the Memphis cohort (Group 2) comprised part of a large multi-cat household of over 60 cats kept indoors only, with unrestricted access to one another. The majority of cats from Group 1 did not display clinical signs consistent with immunodeficiency during the 22-month observation period. In contrast, the outcome of infection in Group 2 was dramatically different; 17/27 (63%) of cats lost a median of 51.3% of their bodyweight (P