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Empiric antibiotic therapy is the appropriate use of antibiotics without knowing the agent, or before its susceptibility is known.

Tick-transmitted disease caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi.

Spirochete with more than 200 serovars. The pathogenic serovars do not replicate outside animal hosts.

Many clinical signs compatible with left-sided heart failure also may occur in respiratory diseases, making the distinction difficult in some cases.

A large number of immunocompromised persons live with dogs and cats. This situation is not without risks, but pets are part of their life and provide many long-term benefits, offering non-judgmental support, decreasing morbidity and improving survival-time.

Pulmonary edema is the accumulation of fluids in the interstitium and alveoli of the lung. There are two main basic mechanisms for edema development: increased hydrostatic pressure in the lung capillaries (high-pressure edema) and increase vascular permeability (low-pressure edema).

Cough is one of the body's defense mechanisms to prevent the entry of noxious materials into the respiratory system, and to clear potentially harmful debris from the lungs and respiratory tract.

Dyspnea is the sensation of having difficult or laborious breathing. It is a subjective phenomenon that needs to be inferred by the clinician in companion animals. Dyspnea, tachypnea (rapid breathing), and hyperpnea (increased ventilation) are not synonymous but are frequently grouped together in veterinary patients.

The diagnostic challenges of immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) were covered in a previous presentation. The controversies in managing IMHA are being discussed in this lecture and illustrated by case presentations.

Immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) is a common hematological disorder in dogs, may be primary (idiopathic, autoimmune) or occur secondarily to underlying diseases (e.g. infections) and is often associated with life-threatening complications.

There are approximately 900 hereditary disorders and genetic predispositions in dogs and about 200 in cats.

In any clinic hemorrhage is a very common clinical problem in dogs and less so in cats.

Anemia is an extremely common clinical problem in cats and is associated with many different conditions, many very different from those in dogs. Bleeding disorders are less common than in dogs, but may frequently complicate hepatic disorders.

Since the early 1980s, the use of blood products in the treatment of critically ill companion animals and in supporting dogs and cats undergoing surgery and minimally-invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures has increased tremendously.

The hormones that dictate calcium regulation include parathyroid hormone (PTH), active vitamin D (1,25 dihydroxycholecalciferol), and calcitonin. Parathyroid hormone functions include mobilization of Ca++ from the bone, and promotion of vitamin D conversion from 25 (OH) cholecalciferol to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (active vitamin D).

Hypoadrenocorticism (Addisons disease) remains challenging to recognize due to the variety of clinical signs that mimic other diseases.

The kidneys are the only organ system within the body containing two sets of capillary beds with different functions. The glomerulus consists of 4-8 lobules containing glomerular capillaries with mesangium providing structural support to hold the capillaries together.

The definition of kidney disease includes any structural or functional change of the kidneys. The kidneys are uniquely susceptible to injury due to the large quantity of blood filtered for each cardiac cycle (20-25% of cardiac output), regional differences in blood supply within the kidney, and a high rate of metabolic activity of renal tubular cells.

Hyperadrenocorticism (HAC) is a commonly diagnosed endocrinopathy in dogs which is caused by persistently high cortisol levels in circulation. Diagnosis and treatment may not be straightforward, and successful management depends upon appropriate evaluation of clinical signs, selection and interpretation of diagnostic tests, and administration and monitoring of therapy.

Anemia is most simply characterized by reduced numbers of erythrocytes and/or decreased erythrocyte hemoglobin content.

Hematopoiesis is the production of new blood cells such as white blood cells (WBC), red blood cells (RBC) and platelets. Although in utero a number of organs are hematopoietically active, including the liver and the spleen, from birth onwards hematopoiesis is centered almost exclusively in the bone marrow.

Normal body temperature in the dog and cat ranges from approximately 100 F to 103 F. Not all animals that have a temperature above this range, however, necessarily have a fever.

Immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (IMT) is a relatively common cause of bleeding in small animals, particularly the dog. Many differing disease processes may initiate IMT.

Albumin is the major determinant of oncotic or colloidal osmotic pressure, the force that holds fluids within the vascular compartment. Most of the important osmotically-active particles in the bloodstream (such as sodium, urea and glucose) are relatively small, and pass freely between the vascular and interstitial compartments, the bodys two major extracellular fluid compartments.

The most common immune-mediated blood disorders in small animal patients are immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (IMT) and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA).

By providing a standardized scheme for terminology, diagnosis, and staging of canine and feline liver disorders, WSAVA is contributing to the improvement in the quality of care provided by veterinarians for dogs and cats with hepatobiliary disease.

There is little evidence based medicine concerning the best dietary or nutritional management of alimentary disease in dogs and cats.

In ideal cases, treatment of hepatobiliary cases is based on biopsy, when indicated. Although not all clients will be willing to follow this diagnostic test, I think it is important to make this recommendation.

The vomiting patient is a diagnostic challenge because of the wide variety of gastric, intestinal, and non-GI disorders (metabolic, neurologic, paraneoplastic) that cause this clinical sign.

Physalloptera nematodes are an uncommon cause of chronic vomiting in dogs and uncommon to rare cause in cats. Since the ova are difficult to consistently find using fecal flotation the true importance is likely underestimated.