Felycin®-CA1(rapamycin, sirolimus) - that’s a new one for me 🧐. Thankfully, cardiologist Dr. John Bonagura (DACVIM, FASE) just delivered 7 hours of talks on cardiovascular disease at the recent ACVAA conference. Here are a few things I learned (you can read our comprehensive article on the topic here with our free downloadable PDF here):

‣ More than 90% of cardiologists are not prescribing the drug. A recent survey of ACVIM Cardiologists presented at the North American Veterinary Cardiology Summit in October indicated that >90% of veterinary cardiologists surveyed are not yet prescribing Felycin®-CA1 to feline patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. (This is based on a survey conducted by the Cardiac Education Group.org by Drs. T. DeFrancesco & W. Church).

‣ The drug received conditional approval (the drug does not have to demonstrate efficacy, only the potential for efficacy) based on the ➡️ RAPACAT (click to read) trial published in JAVMA July 2024.

‣ Tip from the pro 👨‍⚕️: If you hear a murmur 🩺 in an adult cat, there’s about a 50% chance it’s going to be HCM or another cause of LV hypertrophy (hypertension, hyperthyroidism), and a 50% chance it’s not (i.e. physiologic)! An NT-proBNP (IDEXX, Bionote®) is a cost-effective test for identifying those cats at higher risk for structural heart disease like HCM who would likely benefit for an echocardiogram (or at least a chest X-ray).

My sincere gratitude 🙏 to Dr. Bonagura for presenting at ACVAA last week. And for putting this information together for our readers.

This is a game changer for your team. The French bulldog is the #1 most popular breed in the USA 🐶. A huge thank you to the amazing team of Drs. Franchino and Ho for their innovation and creation of an EASY airway management algorithm in brachycephalic anesthesia, and also an AWESOME anesthesia ✔ checklist for these patients.

This algorithm and checklist have only been tested in simulation training. That said, I am using it in practice and I believe it saves lives ⭐️.

Benefits of the checklist and algorithm:

✔ It helps staff to be better prepared and make good clinical decisions.

✔ Using the algorithm speeds up intervention time. And we all know time saves lives in these patients!!

Thank you 😊 to Drs. Drs. Franchino and Ho at Royal Veterinary College London for allowing me to share this information early to readers.

You can read their ABSTRACT presentation here ⬇️

I am really loving this awesome article from our colleagues in Japan 🇯🇵: Kanno et al. Comparison of four knots for securing endotracheal tubes in an experimental model. VAA 2026. Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, Musashino, Tokyo, Japan.

We all know how frightening 😱 it is to experience an unintentional extubation. In human medicine, it reportedly happens 5 times out of 100 intubations. EEK!

You can read the entire article here. The knots evaluated were: Single knot (SK), surgeon’s double knot (DL), clove hitch (CH) 🍀 and modified cow 🐮 hitch (MC). A single polyvinyl chloride tie was used.

What you need to know:

‣ The modified cow hitch and the clove hitch techniques for tie fixation consistently showed higher fixation strength than the SK and DL techniques across all ETT diameters

‣ The CH technique showed a particularly strong performance.

‣ Findings suggest that the CH knot may help reduce unexpected ETT displacement.

👫 Anesthesia Team Building Tip of the Week

But as promised, I LOVE anesthesia too much to stop here. You can read on for more updates, information and news!

With all my love ❤️,

Ashley

See you next month! I’m headed back to the OR to TRY to keep up with our awesome surgeons doing cool external fixators like this… This puppy did GREAT!!

‣ Retrospective cohort study (25 years!!!) of 176 dogs diagnosed with a GDV on a right lateral abdominal radiograph

‣ 9% had findings consistent with aspiration pneumonia on radiographs

‣ 8.5% had signs of cardiomegaly

‣ In dogs with GDV and documented thoracic radiographs, thoracic radiographic abnormalities were not associated with the decision to proceed with surgery, and NOT associated with survival to discharge.

🐶 My take: If you have a dog with a GDV, thoracic radiographs are always nice to have as a baseline. But findings of those radiographs do not impact short-term outcome. In my experience, the best thing to do is to bolus them fluids, give them pain medications and GET THEM INTO AN OR!!!!!!

⭐️ A HUGE thank you to JD Medical and Mindray. ⭐️

JD Medical and the entire team there are incredible. They are the most knowledgeable folks on all things anesthesia equipment. If you ever need them, their customer service is INCREDIBLE!!! I highly recommend them. Our techs love working with them and so do I 😊.

Another thank you to Mindray for bringing so much happiness into my life, and all of our anesthesia technicians. I LOVE THE VETA 5 ❤️. It’s one of the best anesthesia machines out there. It makes our job easy and safe. It’s the anesthesia machine that once a technician works with, they will literally BEG you to get more! Thank you to the entire team at Mindray for advancing veterinary anesthesia. You rock!

This information is provided for educational purposes only and is not meant to replace the supervision of a licensed veterinarian.

Downloadable PDF ⬇️

This information is provided for educational purposes only and is not meant to replace the supervision of a licensed veterinarian.

🙋‍♀️ ❓What is a reliable intramuscular sedation protocol for a captive wolf that is trained to receive IM injections:

As my technicians know, I use patient-appropriate doses of dexmedetomidine in nearly every case. So it’s no surprise that my sedation protocol includes it 😃.

✔ 15 ucg/kg dexmedetomidine IM AND
✔ 3 mg/kg ketamine IM

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