Today’s case is a 10-year-old male neutered domestic shorthair cat with 1-week history of increased respiratory effort and respiratory rate. What would you do next?
10 year old DSH
Teaching and learning about veterinary diagnostic imaging.
Hello Allison,
Would you ever include as a differential diagnoses a diffuse tumor or metastasis with this pattern?
Also, it seems to me that there is a soft tissue mass with small pockets of air in the caudoventral aspect of the larynx, seen in the left lateral proyection, but I’m not sure if this could be an artifact due to head position.
Thank you!
Cat thoraxes can be tricky! If you look closely, the nodular regions all have air in the center indicating this is bronchial thickening, or “doughnuts”. That said, when there is bronchial plugging it can be very difficult to tell the difference between inflammatory disease and neoplasia. In the laryngeal region I think we are seeing the base of the tongue and the larynx. It would be better evaluated on a properly positioned neck radiograph, so that would be the next step if you see something suspicious.
Histoplasmosis or some other systemic fungal disease