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Background Awareness of prescribing practices helps identify opportunities to improve antibiotic use (AU). Objectives To estimate AU prevalence in dogs and cats in U.S. veterinary teaching hospitals (VTHs) and identify antibiotic drugs commonly prescribed, indications for use, and evidence of bacterial infection. Animals Medical record data were collected from dogs and cats examined at 14 VTHs. Methods Data were collected from VTH medical records of dogs and cats examined by primary care, urgent care, emergency and critical care, internal medicine, and surgery services on a single day during August 13‐September 3, 2020. Data included signalment; clinical service; inpatient or outpatient status; clinical conditions; diagnostic tests; evidence of bacterial infection; intended reason for AU; name and route of antibiotics prescribed. Results Of 883 dogs and cats, 322 (36.5%) were prescribed at least 1 antibiotic. Among 285 antibiotics administered systemically intended for treatment of infection, 10.9% were prescribed without evidence of infection. The most common class of antibiotics presribed for systemic administration was potentiated penicillin for dogs (115/346, 33.3%) and cats (27/80, 33.8%). For dogs and cats, first‐generation cephalosporins (93/346, 26.9% and 11/80, 13.8%, respectively) and fluoroquinolones (51/346, 14.7% and 19/80, 23.8%, respectively) was second or third most‐prescribed. Common AU indications included skin, respiratory, and urinary conditions, and perioperative use. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Collaborative data collection provides a sustainable methodology to generate national AU prevalence estimates and bring attention to areas requiring additional research and detailed data collection. These efforts can also identify practice improvement opportunities in settings where future veterinarians are trained.

Background Concerns for recrudescence of Ehrlichia canis infection arise when immunosuppressive drugs are used to treat immune‐mediated diseases in dogs previously infected with E. canis. Objectives Determine whether administration of prednisolone and cyclosporine would reactivate E. canis infection in dogs previously treated with doxycycline during the acute or subclinical phases. Animals Seven beagles previously experimentally infected with E. canis and administered doxycycline for 4 weeks were included. Three of the 7 dogs were incidentally concurrently infected with Anaplasma platys and Babesia vogeli and were administered 2 doses of imidocarb 2 weeks apart before enrollment in the current study. Methods Experimental study. Each dog was administered prednisolone and cyclosporine for 6 weeks. Clinical signs, complete blood cell count (CBC), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for E. canis, A. platys, and B. vogeli DNA in blood, E. canis indirect fluorescent antibodies (IFA) titers, and flow cytometry for antiplatelet antibodies were monitored. Results All dogs completed the immunosuppressive protocol. No evidence for recrudescence of E. canis, A. platys, or B. vogeli were detected based on clinical signs or results of CBC, PCR, IFA, and flow cytometry for antiplatelet antibodies. E. canis IFA titers were negative in 5/7 dogs at the end of immunosuppressive protocol and were negative 6 months after the protocol in 5/5 dogs available for testing. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Dogs administered with a 4‐week course of doxycycline with or without imidocarb failed to show evidence of activation of E. canis infection after administration of a commonly used immune suppressive protocol.

This work evaluated organisms detected by microbiologic culture and molecular biology techniques in acute upper respiratory disease in shelter cats. Compared to other studies, similar detection rates were found for feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1) and Bordetella bronchiseptica but in our study population, there was a low incidence of Chlamydophila felis and calicivirus. Our results suggest that results from samples collected from the nasal or pharyngeal cavity were similar and detection by nucleic acid amplification techniques were suitable sampling strategies. A quantitative PCR assay was applied to nasal and pharyngeal samples and correlation between disease status and FHV-1 viral load was demonstrated, suggesting the assay may be useful clinically. A whole-blood proliferation assay was evaluated in order to assess the cellular immune response during an attempt to improve response to FHV-1 vaccination via supplementation with a strain of Enterococcus faecium (SF68) in kittens. The assay was shown to be reliable and used little blood, allowing for repeated testing in young animals. An increase in the percentage of CD4+ lymphocytes but not an increase in proliferative response to FHV-1 antigens secondary to supplementation was demonstrated. This may suggest an improvement in antigen processing abilities of the cats; however, more detailed studies are needed to prove this theory. In an attempt to ameliorate clinical signs in cats with rhinitis, response to a novel therapy of liposome DNA complexes was reported in three groups of cats: client-owned, shelter-owned, and healthy laboratory-animals. Detection of FHV-1 was low in the diseased animals, suggesting that FHV-1 is not involved in the disease or, alternatively, instigates a pathologic process and then is cleared. Also notable, no bias towards a Th2-type immune response leading to ineffective clearance of virus was detected in diseased cats. Administration of the liposome-complexes produced an innate immune response manifested by fever and malaise in placebo and treatment groups, which may have affected our ability to detect significant differences in the groups, as the placebo appeared to have an effect in cats as well. Reduction in severity of clinical signs was noted in client-owned treatment cats but not more acutely affected shelter-owned cats. Traditionally defined pathogens were not detected in several cats in our studies; further investigation of all organisms detected in these cats is warranted. Mycoplasma species were detected in the majority of these cats, therefore, a real-time PCR assay was developed to allow for quantitation of organismal load in future studies.