Hello Group, I'm trying to learn and understand about the Feline Leukemia. Although, back in the 80's, I did have three cats with it, they were older when they caught the disease, and still lived to be in their teens.
Back in January, this happened practically overnight. My Lucy Lu, who was only 11 months of age, went down on me. Hiding under the bed, bleeding from the gums, and also had a mouth ulcer. At first, I thought she bit into something that may have cut her, but that evening she started hiding under the bed. The day before, she was acting normal, happy, etc. I took her to the vet the next morning, and he told me to immediately take her to the emergency vet. She had Petechia and eccymosis over her entire ventrum. Grade II-II/Vi systolic murmur. Her PVC was 15%. They also did an in-house Felv/Fiv which was negative. I had her tested when I first adopted her, and she was negative then. They did perform a blood transfusion, but it didn't seem to help much. Her PVC went to 13%, but then dropped to 10% the next day. This is what the told me: The CBC partial report from the las supported the in-house review of blood smear: disproportionate number of wbcs of lymphocyte lineage. 11.2K lymphocytes with only 2.2K neutrophils. O% Reticulocytes. The CBC supports concern for abn wbc's in circulation = likely lymphoma or leukemia. More tests would define type of cancer/leukemia but prognosis was guarded LT and best chance for remission will require chemo (not just steroids - no guarantee for response and ultimately will be fatal. If want to try then should do AUS (but may not be able to do FNA safely with coagulopathy) and BMA. Reiterated that could have IMHA as component, but not just IMHA (IMHA WITH CANCER) and more likely anemic and low platelets due to cancer cells crowding out normal lines in marrow. Now my questions are: Is this common for a Feline Leukemia cat to have petechia and ecchymosis over entire ventrum? Her Platelets were under 50,000 on blood smear. I have read where the bone marrow can sequester Feline Leukemia, and therefore, when blood is taken for these tests, they can be a "false negative". Is this true? When I had older cats with Feline Leukemia, they did not have petechia, but since Lucy Lu was so young, maybe that's different, I don't know. Her RBC was 2.53 (5.80-11.00) Hemoglobin 3.7 (8.6-16) Hematocrit - 10.8 (28.0-47/0) Lymphocyte Absolute 11.23 (1.0-7.9) Lymphocytes 82% No mycoplasma seen, however negative finding do not rule out infection. We ended up putting Lucy Lu to sleep. She was so young, and I didn't want to put her through this to make her old before her age, I didn't feel it was fair. However, my mind is wondering, did she possibly have Feline Leukemia? Does this sound typical of Feline Leukemia? Thank you kindly. Tammy Zack
