[Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis

[Randy Henke]

Hi Sheila,

Thanks for your opinion. I'm thinking along the same lines. If it's not too
late I am going to start her on the Prednisone tonight and hope for the
best.

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Armstrong-Brown, Sheila DDS Timonium <
Sheila.Armstrong-Brown at ssa.gov> wrote:

> I am sure the Elisa test was wrong.  You can have Curly retested in 3
> months to be sure.  The IFA is very accurate.  If the cat is indoor, no way
> to get infected.
>
>
>
> *From:* Felvtalk [mailto:felvtalk-bounces at felineleukemia.org] *On Behalf
> Of *Randy Henke
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 14, 2016 8:41 AM
> *To:* felvtalk at felineleukemia.org
> *Subject:* [Felvtalk] Questioning FELV diagnosis
>
>
>
> Our cat, Curly, is ten years old. We found her outside as a kitten and had
> her tested for FELV at that time. She was negative. She's been strictly an
> indoor cat since then and had no contact with any potentially infected cats.
>
> Three months ago, she wasn't acting like herself. Very lethargic and
> moderately dehydrated. We took her to the vet. She was running a low fever
> and her blood test showed severe anemia and low white cell count. The vet
> suspected immune mediated hemolytic anemia. He gave her some fluids,
> started her on an antibiotic for any potential infections and prednisone.
> Three days later she was about the same so we took her back to the vet.
> This time they ran an ELISA test to rule out FELV even though it was
> incredibly unlikely given her history. It came back positive. They drew
> blood at that time for an IFA test to confirm it and told us to discontinue
> the prednisone immediately.
>
> By the next day, Curly was feeling better and she quickly bounced back to
> her old self which I suspect was due to the three days of prednisone
> treatment. The IFA test came back negative.
>
> We were content to think the ELISA was a false positive because Curly
> seemed fine until a couple of weeks ago when she became listless and
> anti-social again. Another blood test showed her to again be very anemic.
>
> We are very confused about what to do. The negative IFA really has me
> wondering. From my understanding, that test is 99.9% accurate in detecting
> the second stage of leukemia.
>
> A negative IFA should mean only one of two things:
>
> 1. The cat is not infected with FELV.
>
> 2. The cat is in the early stages and has not progressed to the second
> stage of the disease where the virus infects the bone marrow.
>
> That would mean that, in order for the anemia to have been caused by
> leukemia, the IFA should have definitely been positive at that point
> because it would need to be actively compromising the bone marrow's
> functioning.
>
> I am leaning toward trying prednisone again, especially since she is
> hardly eating or moving around at this point. If anyone can point out if my
> logic is flawed, please do so. Any suggestions would be very much
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Randy
>
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