Cardiovascular Flashcards
What are the non-cardiac signs of cardiac disease?
Reduced production (around 25%) Exercise intolerance Increased urine output Syncope (eg patent ductus arteriosus) Poor appetite when failing
Where is best to test perfusion in a farm animal?
Ears
not legs if lying down- will feel warmer
Why might a farm animal have pale mucous membranes?
Anaemia: Deficiencies - Iron, copper, cobalt Toxicities - Kale, nitrate/nitrite, molybdenum Blood / Protein loss: Haemonchosis Fascioliasis Johnes Disease Sucking Lice PGE Redwater (Babesia) Leptospirosis (acute) Poor Perfusion: Shock (Right Displaced Abomasum) Heart Failure Thrombosis
Why might a farm animal have red mucous membranes?
Toxaemia Salmomellosis (brick red) Pasturellosis Malignant Catarrhal Fever Infectious Bovine Kerato-conjuctivitis (if co-grazing with sheep) Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis
Why might a farm animal have blue mucous membranes (cyanosis)?
Respiratory Failure
Nitrate/Nitrite, Metaldehyde (slug pellets) poisoning (should not be grazed during/immediately after fertilisation of fields)
Congenital cardiac abnormality - Calves (insufficient oxygen circulation)
Why might a farm animal have yellow mucous membranes (jaundice)?
Hepatitis
Haemolytic Anaemia (Babesia – Red Water)
Photosensitisation (from ingesting certain plants)
Ragwort, Kale, Lupin, Copper poisoning (due to over-supplementation)
Post-partum haemoglobinuria
Leptospirosis (abortion)
Why might a farm animal have haemorrhagic mucous membranes?
Anthrax Bracken Sweet vernal grass poisoning Copper toxicity (acute) Leptospirosis Mycotoxicosis (live yeast binds to walls of mycotoxins)
Where can you feel for a pulse in cattle?
Middle Coccygeal artery 10cm below anus
External maxillary artery
Medial artery, inside forelimb - arterial sample
Caudal auricular artery
What should a cow’s heart rate be?
Calves 100 - 120
Cattle 50 – 80, high yielders up to 95
(120+ suggestive of primary cardiac disease)
Under what circumstance are the jugular and subcutaneous abdominal (milk) veins distended?
When is there increased venous pressure?
Right-sided heart failure
Cardiac failure
When is it normal to feel a jugular pulse?
When is it abnormal?
Normal up to 1/3rd way up
Occlude or empty jugular to check if abnormal
All the way up in :
Endocarditis, Pericarditis, haemothorax, hydrothorax, congestive heart failure, valvular stenosis or insufficiency
Sporadic bovine leukosis - Thymic form
Enzootic bovine leukosis - Cardiac form
In a cow, where are the base and apex of the heart located?
Base - 3rd to 6th rib
Apex - 6th rib at articulation of rib to sternum, 2 cm cranial to diaphragm
Regarding farm animals, why might the first and second heart sounds be loud?
1st sound loud if increased force of contraction
2nd sound loud if increased pressure in vessels
How does endocarditis occur in cows?
Persistent bacteraemia e.g. after traumatic reticulitis, nephritis, metritis, mastitis
Caudal vena cava thrombosis is secondary to what?
Where does the thrombosis occur?
Liver abscesses
Occurs between liver and right atrium
Why is it important that cattle and sheep get enough Vit E and selenium?
Vitamin E and selenium-containing enzymes are required as physiological antagonists of free radicals. In the absence of Vit E and/or
selenium, cellular membranes are modified by free radicals and their ability to maintain essential differential gradients for one or more ions is reduced.
What is fractional shortening?
Way of measuring left ventricle performance
Measures and ratios the change in the diameter of the left ventricle between the contracted and relaxed states
LV end-diastolic diameter - LV end-systolic diameter
/ LV end-diastolic diameter
What is a normal value for fractional shortening?
Normal > 25%
How do you calculate ejection fraction?
End diastolic volume - end systolic volume
/ end diastolic volume X 100%
Normal >50%
When scanning the heart, which view is referred to as the ‘home view’?
RPS (right parasternal) long axis 4 chamber view
End of diastole occurs where on an eCG?
Start of QRS complex
End of systole occurs where on an eCG?
End of T wave
Describe how you find the heart when doing an eCG?
Lay animal on its side on an echo table
Clip the hair over the heart, use ultrasound coupling gel for acoustic contact
Imagining can not be carried out through bone or air, so eCG must be carried out through windows between lung lobes
Minimise air-filled lungs by scanning through the lower chest wall through a hole in the echo table
Sector transducers are used to get between ribs and lungs lobes
In an ECG, what is assessed in a RPS long axis view?
Left ventricle shape
Contractility
Mitral valve, colour flow shows whether there is any mitral regurgitation
Can calculate ejection fraction
Atrial septum: left heart failure- may bulge to the right due to high left atrial pressure, vice versa